Corrupted by Degree
by Elysian 13
Summary: Following Andrew's visit to LA in the AtS episode 'Damage' Angel is heartbroken to realize that the Scoobies no longer trust him since he took control of Wolfram & Hart and Andrew returns to Europe with knowledge of Spike's return
1. Return from LA

Corrupted by Degree  
  
Angel and Wesley came out of the distillery into the open pavement. The pavement was wet, reflecting the darkness in a faint sheen and in puddles from recent rain. With them came the black dressed retrieval squad, rifles slung on their back and with a gurney with a young girl strapped to it between them.  
  
"Chain her into the van," Angel told them. "I want armed guards riding with her in the back."  
  
Andrew walked out of the darkness past the van that they planned to load the captured Slayer into. "That's alright, boys," Andrew said calmly. "I'll take her from here."  
  
A lone figure standing there in front of Angel and the Wolfram & Hart retrieval squad in a coat that was far too big for him. The picture was far from intimidating.  
  
Angel was dumbfounded. "What?"  
  
"Totally appreciate your help on this one big guy. Never could've found her without you, but you've got enough problems of your own to worry about."  
  
Angel tried to step around the boy, one hand on the gurney where the psycho young girl was strapped down. "Get out of the way, Andrew."  
  
Andrew made a point to stand in Angel's path.  
  
"She's a slayer. That means . . . she's ours."  
  
Angel looked at Andrew as if he were crazy. Like a bug he had to step over to get where he was going. "Yeah. Sorry ... not how it works." He tried to walk around as he ignored the boy and spoke to the retrieval squad. "Load her up don't hesitate to tranq her if she so much as ..."  
  
Andrew stepped back in his way.  
  
"No. I don't think you heard me Angel."  
  
Behind Andrew, girls appeared out of the darkness. Each were young. But they each seemed to carry themselves with an assertiveness that was . . . disconcerting. They gathered behind Andrew and tried to look intimidating. They were just girls, but something about them threw Angel and each of the men around him back a step. An aura of power. Strength. Slayers, Angel realized with a preternatural chill that struck the vampire to the bone.  
  
Andrew stood there before them, undaunted. "Think we're just gonna let you take her back to your evil stronghold. Well as they say in Mehico ..." The boy slowly realized he seemed to have lost himself somewhere along the way. "No," he said slowly. "We're not gonna let you."  
  
Angel refused to be backed down. "She's psychotic, and I'm not turning her over . . . to you."  
  
"You don't have a choice. Check the viewscreen Uhura. I've got twelve Vampyre Slayers behind me and not one of them has ever dated you." Andrew faced down Angel smugly. "She's coming with us one way or another."  
  
Angel smirked. "You're way out of your league. I'll just clear this with Buffy."  
  
Andrew smiled faintly. "Where do you think my orders came from?!"  
  
Angel's smirk faltered. Heartbreak played around behind his eyes.  
  
"Newsflash," said Andrew with a dramatic gesture. "Nobody in our camp trusts you anymore." Andrew shook his head, dismissing any hopes the vampire might entertain. "Nobody. You work for Wolfram & Hart. Don't fool yourself. We're not on the same side."  
  
Angel, Wesley and the team from Wolfram & Hart faced Andrew and the slayers, each on opposite sides of an invisible line in the pavement.   
  
"Thank you for your help," said Andrew, "but, uh . . . We got it." He gestured quietly and some of the girls came around him and took hold of the gurney, rolling it away from Angel. Many of the girls seemed reluctant to turn their back on him, he noticed. A few moments later Andrew and the girls disappeared back into the darkness.  
  
"So that's it," said Wesley quietly. "We're just gonna let him take her."  
  
"She's one of theirs. They can handle it. Besides," Angel said distractedly, still staring off into the darkness after them, "You heard the man, we got enough problems of our own to worry about."  
  
* * * * * * *  
  
"Mission accomplished," said Andrew. "We're on our way home."  
  
He flipped the phone closed.  
  
"I am so cool," he said, smiling faintly before he dropped his phone a moment later. "Oops!"  
  
Andrew sat there for a long minute, thinking of the long road that brought him here. Of the people, who despite his many quirks, trusted him with something this important. Rupert in England. Willow and Kennedy in Rio. Xander, somewhere in darkest Africa, in countries for which Andrew didn't even have a name. Faith and Robin, god knows where. People, who had seen him at his worst and yet somehow had faith in him, in the man he could become.  
  
He thought of Buffy, so strong, but with damp eyes reflecting heartbreak and other things. World weary and lost somewhere along the way. Stalwart in spite of it.  
  
He thought of Spike, who had died to save the world and yet lived.  
  
Andrew smiled in the darkness. Collected his small bag and his laptop for the trip. "And the news he brings home will change their world."  
  
* * * * * * *  
  
Half an hour later a small private jet lifted off from the runway, somewhere outside of Los Angeles, heading eastward into the rising sun.  
  
* * * * * * *  
  
Wesley frowned. "I thought you said you were okay with it?!"  
  
"Well I'm not." Angel said. Wesley somehow wasn't surprised to see tears in his eyes. "I'm not." The vampire paused to take an unnecessary breath. "That little chickenshit stood there and played me for a fool. Stood up to me, and somehow walked away the better man. How did we get here, Wes?" Angel spoke sadly. "How did we get . . . here?"  
  
"I don't know," Wesley said slowly. "Maybe when we accepted control of the evil multinational corporation."  
  
Angel looked up at him with dark eyes. "We're doing good here, Wes."  
  
"Are we? Can you really take this giant faceless thing, built on shades of evil we can't begin to imagine, and somehow turn it toward good? This building is built on the blood of human sacrifice. The money we spend squeezed from slaughter. For every person we save how many indeterminate evils do we ignore because they allow us to get there. I seem to remember sitting here in this office just a week ago having a conversation with Fred and Gunn about whether we could kill somebody from space if we wanted to . . . if we wished," Wesley wanted to bury his face in his hands. "I remember speaking calmly . . . when once upon a time that possibility would have struck me with the most profound horror. I feel . . . like something's slipping. Like I lost something of me along the way. Maybe Spike was right. Working someplace like this. Maybe you don't change the system. It changes you."  
  
Angel came out of his thoughts and looked at Wes with cold eyes like pits of steel. "Something has to be done."  
  
"What?" Asked Wes. "What is it that we can do?"  
  
"Something."  
  
* * * * * * *  
  
"Your mission went well?" Giles asked as Andrew walked into the room in London.  
  
"Like clockwork," responded Andrew. "Wh . . . What'll happen to the girl?"  
  
"I'm not sure," Giles said kindly. " I'm not certain what we can do for someone as far gone as she seems to be. I can promise that she'll have the best help the Council's money can buy."  
  
Andrew looked at his feet. "I suppose that's something."  
  
Giles stopped. He took off his glasses and proceeded to clean them with a soft cloth. "Andrew, I know you probably don't hear this much. To be honest much of the time all you do is irritate the piss out of the lot of us, but I thought you should know how ... proud ... we are of you. We should probably tell you that more often. This mission was important, and difficult in a lot of way, not least of which was Angel. Once upon a time I never would have trusted you with anything of this importance, but you've slowly proven yourself, and you came back with flying colors. I just wanted to say it, wanted you to hear it ... I'm proud of you."  
  
"Mr. Giles ... and I didn't even get you a gift. Thank you."  
  
"No thanks are necessary." Giles slipped his glasses back on. "Though to be honest one of the other reasons I sent you was a sincere hope that you could irritate Angel and Wesley as much as you sometimes irritate me."  
  
"Still," said Andrew blushing. "Thank you. You can help me in one way though, if you really feel bad for not telling me before that is. Kind of an apology present if you will. I'd like to borrow the X-jet. Need a ride to Rome."  
  
"Why the he . . ."   
  
"News for the boss. J. Jonah Jameson, stop the presses kinda news. I think it's something she'll want to hear about in person."  
  
Giles frowned at him. "As usual, Andrew, I don't know what the hell you're talking about."  
  
"Trust me," Andrew smiled evilly. "It'll blow your mind."  
  
"Now I'm frightened."  
  
"You should be," Andrew said in a bad mimicry of Yoda. "You should be."  
  
Giles turned and left the room.  
  
Andrew followed. "Oh, come on!"  
  
_______________________________________________________________________  
  
author's note: sorry for the lack of spuffy action so far. hell, sorry for the lack of buffy and spike entirely. that will change. you gotta have faith. everyone who wants to strangle me now raise your hand. oh, everyone is it ...  
  
(two fingered salute)  
  
do you trust me? 


	2. Once Upon a Time

Chapter Two  
  
"Once Upon a Time ..."  
  
____________________________________________________________________________________________________  
  
  
  
"Can you feel that?" Fred's thumb gently pressed into his skin near his wrist.  
  
"Yeah," responded Spike spiritlessly. "Feels like some crazy bint lopped off my arms."  
  
Spike lay on a hospital bed in a dim room. The head of the bed was cranked high enough, a few pillows stuffed behind him, so that he was almost sitting up. Fred sat in a small folding chair at his side. Beyond them was the silence of the waning hours of the night.  
  
"Spike, I meant . . ."  
  
Spike closed his eyes for a moment. He took a deep, unnecessary breath. "I know what you meant, luv. Yes. I can feel that. But I can't feel it as clearly as I should. It doesn't feel real. It feels . . . kinda numb."  
  
The young scientist smiled faintly. "That would be the painkillers. They tend to do that. As long as you can actually feel it I wouldn't worry."  
  
She touched the raw, red scar encircling one forearm, examining the wound. She turned Spike's arm gently. "The surgeons did a good job. All the nerves seem intact. You should have full mobility. I'd worry more if she'd done something to your elbow."  
  
Spike sat there quietly, the depth of pain like darkness behind his eyes. She finally stopped and looked at him.  
  
"Are you alright?" Fred asked with quiet sympathy. "Is there . . . still a lot of pain?"  
  
"More than I'd like. Not much considering. I shouldn't complain. It's . . . what I deserve."  
  
She shook her head. "Nobody said that."  
  
"No," Spike responded, despondent. "I did. The lass thought I'd killed her family. And I'm supposed to what . . . complain . . . 'cause hers wasn't one of the hundreds of families I did kill. I'm not saying, Angel's right . . . 'cause, uh . . . I'm physically incapable of saying that, but . . . for a demon, I never did think much about the nature of evil. I just threw myself in. Thought it was a party. I liked the rush. I liked the crunch." The vampire blinked slowly. "Never did look back at the victims."  
  
Fred watched him quietly. She spoke softly, "I imagine Angel couldn't take his eyes off them." She swallowed. "I suppose it was . . . art to him. I guess he likely would have considered Dana a masterpiece."  
  
Fred's soft words tapered off and seemed to hang there in the air, in the deep corners of silence.  
  
Spike finally tried to meet her eye. "What happens to her?"  
  
"I don't know. Wes said that Andrew and the Slayers took her. They didn't trust us to help her."  
  
"Andrew double-crossed you! That's a good move." Spike's smile didn't quite reach the emptiness in his eyes. "Hope for the little ponce yet." Spike looked down at his arms. "Though, the tingling in my forearms says . . . she's too far gone to help. She's a monster."  
  
Fred, "She was an innocent victim."  
  
"So were Angel and I . . . once upon a time."  
  
She repeated his words breathlessly into the silence, "Once upon a time . . ."  
  
* * * * * * *  
  
Buffy stood quietly on a terrace, staring silently out at the world. The sun was in the final motions of setting, casting the horizon in sheets of pink and lavender. She leaned carelessly against the barricade. Absently played with the ivy that clung to it on the outside.  
  
The french doors were open behind her. An evening breeze stirred, trying to draw the ivory colored curtains out onto the terrace. They fluttered faintly.  
  
These past few months, her life, was like a blur in her mind. London. Paris. Prague. Berlin. Places she once would have never even hoped to dream of seeing. Even if she didn't always speak the language there was beauty to be found there. In moments of peace when she could forget for minutes and hours that the weight of the world had ever slung itself over her slim shoulders. Moments, when despite everything that had happened in her colorful memory she could forget herself and remember how it was to smile.  
  
Buffy had found peace here in Europe that she never expected she could have found in California. She couldn't say precisely that she had found contentment, because some memories were too vitriolic to tuck away and avoid forever. She could say though, that in many ways, she was happier than she had ever been.  
  
It had been like a dream. Everyday she'd wake up somewhere new. Somewhere exciting. It was like the day had no memory.  
  
But like all dreams, it eventually had to come to an end. They had to settle somewhere. Dawn had to go to school for one. And there were, other considerations. Part of Buffy had expected to be homesick, after being away for so long, but California didn't hold the allure it once had. They had decided on Rome. The city sprawled, an eclectic mix of the new and ancient world. Something in it had called to her. She had found an apartment on the outskirts of the city.  
  
Rome seemed comfortable to her.  
  
The breeze carried a faint fragrance. Buffy didn't know what it was, but it had become familiar, and it meant she was home.   
  
"There you are," Dawn appeared through the French doors from inside and came out onto the terrace to stand beside her. "I was wondering where you got off to."  
  
"I'm here," Buffy said somewhat playfully. "I've been here. I like it here."  
  
"You better like it here," said Dawn in a good-natured kinda way. "The rent's paid up until . . . I don't know when, but the rent's paid."  
  
"Actually we own it."  
  
Dawn smiled. "See."  
  
Buffy took an expectant breath. "So what are you up to?"  
  
Dawn's smile turned into a frown. "What makes you think I'm up to something?"  
  
Buffy smiled indulgently at her sister.  
  
"Okay, okay. I wanted to know if I could go out with Anthony and Marguerite tomorrow and hang out and do whatever us kids do."  
  
"Is your homework done?"  
  
Dawn sighed, "Yes, mother."  
  
Buffy made a gesture. "Then knock yourself out. Just . . ."  
  
"Not literally. Got it."  
  
Dawn lingered. After a moment Buffy looked at her. "Was there something else?"  
  
The younger girl hesitated. "Giles called earlier."  
  
"Everything in L.A. go alright?"  
  
"I guess," Dawn hedged. "I mean he said everything went down fine."  
  
"What do you mean you guess?"  
  
"Giles and Andrew are flying down tomorrow."  
  
Buffy frowned thoughtfully. "Did he say why?"  
  
"No. Just that there was something that they had to talk to you about."  
  
Buffy thought for a few moments. A slight crease marred the carefree lines of her face as she ran the possibilities through her mind. "Angel," she realized finally. "It's gotta be Angel."  
  
"You think," asked Dawn quizzically. The slightly taller girl leaned against the barricade beside Buffy. She brushed her long brown hair back along the side with her fingers and took a long look at her sister. "I still don't understand what the heck he was thinking."  
  
Buffy sniffed. "I'm not sure he was. That's kinda the problem." Buffy stared out at the sunset distantly. "We might have to do something."  
  
"What can we do?"  
  
"I don't know," said Buffy softly. "A permanent team of our own in L.A. for one . . . to counteract Angel's people. I'll talk about it with Giles."  
  
Dawn chuckled. She shook her head and wore a soft smile. "I'm not so sure Angel will like that."  
  
"I'm past caring about what Angel likes and doesn't like."  
  
"It's about time." Dawn laughed out loud. There was a big grin on her face. " 'His hair sticks straight up, and he's bloody stupid.' "  
  
Buffy smiled and shook her head as they turned and walked back inside. "I'm glad you've gotten more mature in your opinions of people. Who told you that?"  
  
"Willow." She seemed almost giddy. "I thought it was appropriate." Dawn closed and latched the french doors. "I'm off to bed," Dawn told her. "Gotta get up early for fun time with my friends. You going to turn in too?"  
  
"Thought I might stay up for a while. At least make an attempt to crack a book."  
  
"Still having trouble sleeping?"  
  
"Yeah. It's like . . . I just can get comfortable enough. Not to mention the dreams."   
  
"Well, no wonder considering . . ."  
  
"Shut it," Buffy snapped back kindly.  
  
* * * * * * *  
  
Harmony lifted the phone to her ear and tried to find a way to do her nails at the same time. "Wolfram & Hart."  
  
Gunn approached. He was wearing a nicely tailored gray suit, moving with a casual gait, and had a briefcase in his hand and a thick folder tucked up under his arm.  
  
"Please hold." Harmony pressed a button on the phone, held the handset between her shoulder and chin, and looked up at Gunn.  
  
He smiled at her kindly. "I'm here for a meeting with the boss,"  
  
Harmony gestured with her free hand, the wet nail polish shining bright. "You can just go right in. He's expecting you."  
  
A moment later she pressed a button on the phone to reconnect her call, leaving splotches of pink nail polish all over the phone. Her eyes widened when she saw.  
  
"Son-of-a-bitch!"  
  
Something growled in her ear through the telephone.  
  
"No. Wait. I'm sorry. I didn't mean you." She held the phone away from her ear and just stared at it. "He hung up on me!" Harmony frowned pensively. "I hope I didn't just start a demon clan war or something."  
  
She shrugged carelessly a moment later, hung up the phone and continued painting her nails.   
  
* * * * * * *  
  
Gunn softly shut the door and approached Angel's desk. Angel was sitting in his chair. Wesley stood off to one side. "Boss. I've got those files you asked for on the new Slayer project we're starting in on."  
  
Wesley looked between Gunn and Angel. "Slayer project?"  
  
"Yeah. Angel came to me this morning. I really had to set heads rolling to get this moving as fast as it is."  
  
Gunn handed a thick folder to Angel over his desk. Angel casually opened it and began to skim through it.   
  
"Get what moving?" Wes asked, wide eyes. There was a sick feeling gathering in the pit of his gut.  
  
"I had our people do what Angel asked me to do. We started files on those Slayers that have already been identified, and set the mystics downstairs on the path of lookin' for others for us." Gunn looked down at Angel. "We'll soon have recruitment teams already in position, pending your approval."  
  
Wes looked at Angel. His mouth hung open a little. "Recruitment!? Angel, I'm not sure that's wise. You're putting the Slayers into direct conflict with Wolfram & Hart."  
  
Angel sighed. "Wesley, I thought of this a whole bunch of ways. We're doing a lot of good here, taking advantage of the abilities this place offers us. Buffy . . . doesn't want to believe that . . . and I don't think we'll get the opportunity to convince her. But . . . maybe we stand a chance of convincing someone else that working for Wolfram & Hart is worthwhile."  
  
Softly, a plea, "Angel . . ."  
  
"Wesley. This isn't up for debate. It's done."  
  
Angel slapped the thick file down on his desk.  
  
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________  
  
Author's notes:  
  
Still no Spuffy, but some actual Buffy and Spike this time at least.  
  
I had to throw that Buffybot line about Angel in there. I just couldn't help myself.  
  
I didn't think that Angel quite belonged in that initial scene with Spike in this fic. He seemed too angry. I hope I did well changing it to fit Fred. I think I did okay. I hope. I love the Spike/Fred friendship.  
  
I think you can probably tell, I like Wes too. He was actually my favorite character on Angel, at least before Spike arrived on scene. It's weird too, considering how much I hated him on Buffy. He slowly grew on me when he showed up on Angel, I admit it took a while, and strangely it was the Connor kidnaping thing that finally nailed him down with me. He's rough, hard, and he tries like hell to do the right thing.  
  
Thanks for all the great reviews for the first chapter of this. It makes up for the occasional nasty ones complaining about how I started my other fic "Endlessly...", though for the most part reviews have been positive for that as well, at least from those that seem to have an open mind.  
  
Love it. Hate it. At least I'm having fun . . . 


	3. A Price for Heroes

Chapter Three  
  
"A Price for Heroes"  
  
Spike slid his hand into the pocket of his jeans. Looked down at the key in his hand. His fingers trembled. He stopped. Clenched his hand. Forced it to steady, before finally slipping the key into the slot, turning the knob, and opening the door into the darkness.  
  
He ambled through, closing the door behind him.   
  
"Honey," Spike greeted listlessly. "I'm home."  
  
The empty apartment greeted him. Uncluttered. Bare walls empty of pictures. Spartan, heartless and cold.  
  
He slid out of his duster awkwardly, gracelessly.   
  
* * * * * * *  
  
"Spike," said Fred. The slender scientist pled with him as he had slipped into a gray tee-shirt and then struggled awkwardly to put on his duster. "I don't think you should leave."  
  
Spike turned to face her in the hospital room. "You said there was nothing else you can do."  
  
She nodded. "Yes. You're right. Everything can't happen all at once" She laid a soft hand on his shoulder. "It'll take time," she said softly. "Time to get better. Time to heal."   
  
"Time that I bloody don't have to spend here," he said somewhat acidly. Spike hesitated and half-smiled kindly at the girl, heartfelt and awkward. "Fred, I'm sorry, but . . . I have to go. I'm just not the layabout kinda guy."  
  
Spike brushed past her.  
  
She turned to watch him leave.  
  
"Spike!" she said after him. "You don't have to be alone."  
  
* * * * * * *  
  
Spike opened the fridge, the bright light inside garish in the dimness of the apartment, and removed a bottle of beer. There were three of them on the top shelf, two not counting the one now in his hand. The rest of the ice chest was barren and empty. The door slipped closed, the room falling back into semi-darkness.  
  
Spike wrapped his fingers around the top of the bottle and tried to untwist the top. His grip fumbled awkwardly.   
  
"Bloody 'ell!"  
  
Spike stopped, watching himself make a loose fist and open it again, and waited for his hands to stop trembling. He took a deep, unnecessary breath. When his hands were steady he tried again. He fumbled so bad he almost dropped the bottle.  
  
"Son-of-a-bitch!" Desperation and despair fueled with anger. The vampire brought his arm around and chucked the bottle across the apartment. He overbalanced a little and stumbled back at step or two rather than fall, bumping into the wall. Placed a hand flat against the wall to hold himself steady. He wavered there, slumped, head bent over at the neck, his face in the deepest shadows.  
  
Spike suddenly collapsed at the base of the wall and began to sob. Great heartrending sobs that tore at his throat.  
  
The smoky, brown bottle, it's neck broken off, laying on it's side, poured its contents along the floor.  
  
* * * * * * *  
  
Buffy sat in a recliner, a blanket gathered up over her waist. The room was dark, lit faintly by the moonlight coming in through the french doors and the wispy ivory colored curtains, leaving pale gossamer patterns of light over the floor. A spot of bright light shining down from a lamp that sat just off to the side and over her shoulder illuminated the book she held in her lap. She looked down at the book sadly.  
  
She reached up and wiped away a tear as it rolled down her cheek.   
  
* * * * * * *  
  
"I still don't get while we couldn't take our own private X-jet," Andrew said as he strapped himself in his seat in the British Airlines Airbus.  
  
Giles was in the seat beside him.  
  
"Because that airplane is bloody expensive. Do you have any idea how much we spend on fuel alone? I almost had a coronary the first time I had to sign off on the checks. We bought that . . . monstrosity for Slayer business, for when we needed transport where none other was strictly feasible. Certainly not to tool around Europe."  
  
"Fine," Andrew crossed his arms and slouched in his seat. "You're ruining our image, you know. You don't bring news of Gandalf's remarkable return after getting off an Airbus, and certainly not after flying coach."  
  
"You do if you don't wish to become broke in the long run. And stop referring to Spike as bloody Gandalf," Giles snapped. "You've almost ruined Tolkien for me."  
  
"Fine. He's not Gandalf the White," Andrew conceded. Revelation played across the boy's face. "He's Bruce Banner who walked out of a Gamma explosion intact . . . except, you know, without the green skin and the Nick Nolte father that turned inexplicably into a cloud of light."  
  
Sighing, Giles hailed a stewardess. "Ma'am. Is there a chance you could get me a stiff drink?"  
  
* * * * * * *  
  
Wesley sat at a stool against the bar, a brown, long-necked beer bottle wrapped in his hand. A hint of shadow, cast by the people behind him and the position of the lights, played about his face. He hadn't shaved, the line of his jaw rough because of it. He stared emptily out into the air behind the bar.  
  
"Can I get myself another off the tap," said a familiar voice softly from just a little down the bar. A hollow, emotionless voice laced with a British accent. "And another small plate of them hot wings if you could do that too, doll."  
  
"Sure," the suddenly bright-eyed girl behind the bar smiled nervously at the man, who now winked at her teasingly. "I'll be right back with that."  
  
"Spike!"  
  
"Wesley," Spike's faux smile faltered. His voice had a brittle edge. "Are you following me? Did Angel set you up to this, 'cause if he did . . ."  
  
"No," Wes said with certainty. "I didn't exactly expect to see you here. Just in search of a quiet pint someplace I wouldn't be noticed. Why are you, here I mean? Shouldn't you be out fighting the good fight?" Wes smiled faintly, "Keeping the world safe for kittens and puppies and all that?"   
  
"I will be. Soon as I heal." He held up a hand and wiggled his fingers.  
  
Wes was contrite, "Right."  
  
"Until then I'll have to be content with the nightmare of Donkey Kong and pissy domestic beer."  
  
"Donkey Kong?"  
  
"Don't ask." Spike snapped. The vampire sighed. "A guy needs to do something during the day," Spike defended himself, "rather than sitting around thinking of new ways to bore himself to death. Not that that's exactly a great choice. Bloody stupid gorilla and his rolling barrels of death. I'm telling you right now I'm gonna beat that bloody game if it kills me."  
  
Wesley laughed, "Actually . . . you can't beat that game. It just goes on and on."  
  
"Well that's bloody brilliant, ain't it. Like someone went an' invented a new level of hell. Now what am I gonna do?"   
  
  
  
* * * * * * *  
  
"So the First was controlling you?"  
  
Wes asked the question and took a draw off his beer.  
  
Spike circled the pool table, checking out the angle of his shot, before deciding how to do it.. "Yeah," he admitted. "A real Puppet master kind of a deal. I was in here, though I didn't exactly remember everything clearly afterwards, but the First was the one workin' all the bloody strings." Spike leaned over the table, carefully lining up. The tip of his stick connected with the cue ball, in turn sending the nine ball gently careening into one of the middle pockets. Spike straightened and stared down at the table. "I killed . . . even with a soul . . . but if I'm honest with myself, I realize that it wasn't entirely my fault." His eyes moved over toward Wesley. "Doesn't make it hurt any less."  
  
"Not all of us have the convenience of that excuse." Wesley raised a hand to forestall the sudden faint hint of ire in Spike's eyes, "That's not what I meant." He was silent long enough to take a breath. "I was . . . estranged . . . from my friends at Angel Inc . . . last year, and into the year before. Looking back, I'm not sure it was ever worth the price I paid. The reasons seem almost stupid now."  
  
Wes looked down at his beer with empty eyes.  
  
"But you did what you thought was right, didn't you?"  
  
Wes spoke softly, "I thought I did."  
  
"Then that's all that should matter."  
  
* * * * * * *  
  
Wesley sat in his office, high up in Wolfram & Hart. The huge windows looked out over a spectacular view of the early morning landscape of Los Angeles. Wes sat behind the desk, holding the phone to his ear.  
  
"Yes, Melina, is it?! Could you get a hold of the dialing code for Italy and bring it to me in my office. Yes, just be as quick as you can about it. Thank you."   
  
A few minutes later a young secretary came in and laid a single sheet of paper down on his desk. As if sensing his mood, she left again without a word.  
  
Wes stared at the numbers on the paper for a long minute before he picked up the phone and began pressing buttons on the keypad.  
  
He suddenly stopped.  
  
He stared down at the headset wrapped in his fingers, saw the way his grip suddenly tightened a little.  
  
He closed his eyes and took a breath.  
  
Wes put his finger on the button, disconnecting the call. He laid the headset gently back down in the cradle.  
  
He stayed there for a while, sitting wordlessly behind his desk at Wolfram & Hart and looking out at the landscape of the city.  
  
  
  
________________________________________________________________  
  
Author's Note: we still don't quite have Spuffy, but we're obviously getting closer  
  
On another note, for those of you who watched this week's episode of Angel, Donkey Kong is not available for Xbox so far as I know. It's owned by Nintendo. Whoops! 


	4. The Playing Field

Chapter Four  
  
"The Playing Field"  
  
____________________________________________________________  
  
A large map of the world was spread on a large table in one of the offices. Angel and Gunn leaned over it.   
  
"These are the positions we've been able to figure for Buffy Summer's and her people," Gunn said. He pointed at the map. "Buffy and Dawn Summers are in Rome. They own some small, private digs just outside of the city proper. Dawn goes to a private school with some good accreditation, and Buffy drives a really nice car."  
  
Two pins with little flags on them stuck out of Italy on the map.  
  
"Rupert Giles and Andrew Wells were in London as of yesterday, but they both had tickets for and should have boarded a British Airways flight in Heathrow say . . . a half hour ago. They should be landing in Rome in another two hours."  
  
Two more tiny flags flew for the moment on the island of Britain.  
  
"Our old pal Willow the witch is curling her toes in Sao Paulo, down in Brazil."  
  
Gunn pointed out another tiny flag.  
  
"We think this guy Xander Harris is somewhere in Mozambique at the moment, though given the realities of that particular place in the world we're having trouble pinning him down exactly."  
  
Another flag positioned vaguely somewhere in eastern Africa.  
  
Two flags in Italy. Two in Britain. One in Africa. Another in South America.   
  
Angel frowned slightly, "What about Faith?"  
  
"That girl seems to be another case altogether. Being a fugitive an' all since Wesley sprung her from Stockton for us she seems to be doing a hell of a job keeping her head down and her flashy self off the radar. Our best guess given the pattern is that she's either in Asia or Australia, Asia being the more likely candidate. The truth is we really don't know for sure. Keep in mind that we don't know a whole lot about your girl's operations. She keeps her circle pretty tight. I remember what that's like. So far as we've heard they don't discuss it all that much with outsiders. But we can ascertain certain things from what we do know. We know Andrew had several Slayers with him when he visited Los Angeles that he held in reserve."  
  
Angel nodded, "More than a dozen."  
  
"Right. So my guess it that each of these people, Giles, Harris, Willow and Faith, run a division covering the geographic area they're in, with the new Slayers and others that they've chosen doing the actual scut work of contact and recruitment. Each of these divisions probably answer to Buffy in Rome, who makes the big decisions. Given the area they're trying to cover and number of people involved it's the only way I can see it working."  
  
  
  
* * * * * * *  
  
A smooth beach. Small waves lapping up against the white sand that stretched along the winding coast as far as the eye could see. A tropical forest, wrapping out and around the resorts, pressed up against the beach.  
  
The sun hung just over the clean, bright blue water in the east, illuminating hints of the landscape in the shallower depths of the ocean beneath the water along the coast.  
  
Willow, dressed in a revealing blue bikini, her normally pale skin healthily darkened by the sun, sat in the sand. She was typing on the laptop balanced in her lap.  
  
Kennedy was sitting behind her, carelessly and distractingly wrapped around the young witch. Kennedy leaned her head down and playfully sucked at the place where Willow's shoulder joined with her neck. Willow stopped, her chin tipping up fractionally, her eyes drifting closed, and her mouth opening silently to suck in an erotic breath.  
  
  
  
* * * * * * *  
  
Standing, watching her reflection in the mirror, Buffy brushed her teeth. Setting her toothbrush aside she picked up a glass of water, took a sip and spit it back into the sink. Next she picked up a wide brush and ran it quickly through her long, blonde hair.  
  
Smiling faintly, she left the bathroom. She almost seemed to dance across the living room to the computer desk in the corner, humming softly beneath her breath. There were books on shelves atop the desk. There were pictures of her sister and friends scattered among them.  
  
Sitting in the chair and awkwardly scooting herself closer to the desk she signed in.  
  
Gently adjusting the position of the mouse Buffy clicked on something on the desktop.  
  
The computer made an electronic chime a few moments later as the new collection of email came in.  
  
  
  
* * * * * * *  
  
"Now, our mystics have managed to locate several Slayers already," Gunn said. "We'll have no way of knowing for certain whether Buffy's people have already contacted them until we contact them ourselves. They may have already been found by your girl's team and been put to work. There's a certain element of risk to this." Gunn looked at Angel seriously. "I know what Wolfram & Hart policy used to be for others who tried to lure their people away to supposedly better pastures. We don't know what your girl's will be."  
  
"Buffy isn't like Wolfram & Hart," Angel said faithfully. "Then again neither are we." Angel furrowed his brow staring hard at the map. "Who do we have on this? Out there on the ground, I mean."  
  
"Units of our Retrieval teams mostly, with a few trusted free-lancers filling in the gap. Before you ask, I've gone through the files. Their loyalty is unquestionable. And all of the free-lancers that I signed off on had reputations that were completely clean."   
  
Angel said thoughtfully, "I want our teams watch each of the girls for a few days. Tell them if they see any hint of contact with Buffy or her people to just . . . walk away, let it be."  
  
"And if they don't . . . see Buffy's people, I mean?"  
  
"Then they can start with the whole recruitment spiel. Offer them money, adventure, a key to the world . . . whatever it is they want."  
  
* * * * * * *  
  
Wesley softly held her hand.  
  
She lay there on the hospital bed, unmoving. He just sat there in a chair beside her bed and held her hand. Quietly.  
  
She seemed soft. Peaceful in sleep. Words that could never have been used to describe her when she was awake.  
  
"I didn't know you were down here," said a soft voice.  
  
Wes turned and looked behind him. "Fred!" He smiled a little awkwardly. He had let go of her hand. "Hi! I was just . . ."  
  
"Visiting Cordelia," Fred answered for him.  
  
"I just . . . I just realized earlier how long it had been since I'd just been down here and seen her," Wes said quietly. "I had forgotten how long it's been."  
  
"Yeah," Fred said quietly empathic as she stepped further into the room. "I get that. Working here. So many distractions. So many things to keep us busy. Sometimes . . . it's hard to remember the cost. I come down here to remind me." She just stood there and stared at the bed for a few moments. "Do you think . . . Do you think she'll ever wake up?"  
  
Wes shook his head. "I don't know. Do you think she'd be proud of us? I was sitting alone in my office this morning. I was trying to make a decision, trying to figure whether working her was ever the best choice." He paused quietly. "How do you do it? How do you . . . handle this place?"  
  
"I stand by my friends," Fred said simply. "I hope I can find it within myself to make the right choice."  
  
* * * * * * *  
  
"Mombasa," a man complained gratingly as he looked out the window at the dusty city. "I mean not even frickin' Nairobi. We got sent to Mombasa!"  
  
Another slightly older man sat in a chair at the table behind him. The meticulously clean black pieces of an AR15 assault rifle were spread on the table and he was snapping them back together again. His hand raised the last piece from the table and expertly snapped it into position.  
  
He raised the AR15 to his shoulder. Settled his finger around the trigger. The rifle clicked on an empty chamber.  
  
"You're in Kenya anyway," the larger man said evenly as he lowered the weapon.  
  
"Yeah . . . great. Feels like a damn brick oven." The whiny man slapped at the side of his neck. "And the god-damned flies are like vultures."  
  
"The big vampire gives the orders. We go. That's the job you signed up for," the older man said placidly. "Today we're here. Soon we'll be someplace else. And if I'll have to listen to your prattle until the woman we're supposed to work with shows I will take my knife and cut out your vocal cords to silence you."  
  
The whiny man turned and looked at him with wide eyes.  
  
"The mission, as it is, will be a damn cake-walk," the older man said confidently. "Nothing will get in the way. Relax. See the sights. Take a walk or something, before I do something big boss vampire will have to cut my head off for."  
  
  
  
* * * * * * *  
  
The bus rolled to a stop and the door opened.  
  
Worn black boots stepped down onto the ground, throwing up faint clouds of colorless dust. The dust clung to the blue jeans that clad the man's legs. A pistol hung in the holster on the worn black leather belt around his waist. He wore a loose shirt and had a medium sized pack slung over his muscled shoulder.   
  
"Welcome to Kenya," Xander Harris said softly.   
  
____________________________________________________  
  
Author's note: Still no Spuffy, but I can promise that Giles & Andrew will show up in Rome next chapter.  
  
Big thanks to all of you who cared enough to review. The response for this has been far and beyond what I could have ever hoped. So thank you. I love you guys.  
  
Sorry to anyone who has been waiting around for the next chapter of "Endlessly..." There are a few of you. This fic has been stealing my attention. I am working on it. 


	5. A Home in Rome

Chapter Five  
  
"Home in Rome"  
  
"Buffy," Giles said, shock evident in his voice, looking up and down the length of her as she stood waiting for him in the airport. "You look . . . "  
  
"I know." Buffy smiled indulgently. "Life is sometimes good . . . even for me. I guess . . . that was just a hard thing to realize back in Sunnydale."  
  
"Has it really been that long?"  
  
"Almost four months since I've laid eyes on you . . . yeah, it really has." She continued, quietly distant, "A little more than seven since Sunnydale." She finally looked directly at him, "How was your flight?"  
  
"An absolute nightmare," responded Giles wearily. "I was treated to what felt like an almost two hour dissertation deconstructing the humor of Monty Python followed by the incessant sounds of a marathon of Pac-Man. Nobody deserves this."  
  
Buffy giggled playfully. "Right," she said unconvincingly, trying to hide her smile. "Nobody should be subjected to that."  
  
Giles removed his glasses. He took a soft cloth from his pocket and began to clean them. He looked at her with sad eyes. "You still haven't forgiven me, have you!?"  
  
Buffy hedged slightly for a moment. "Giles . . . I'm not sure it's something I can so easily forgive," she said seriously. She lowered her eyes and bit at her bottom lip. She looked at him almost nakedly. "I can promise to at least try. I suppose you deserve that much." Buffy smirked, "So what do you say, no more torture . . . we'll call it a draw."  
  
"That's . . ." Giles stopped and shot her a sudden accusation. "Hey!"  
  
She smiled slyly, "I was wondering if I'd be able to get that one by you."  
  
He smiled thinly at her and shook his head, "I suppose it's something that you're still willing to poke fun at me."   
  
"It doesn't mean I don't love you." She looked at her Watcher kindly. "You know that right?"  
  
"Yeah. I know that," Giles said quietly emotional. "For what it's worth I am sorry. There has barely been a day that's gone by that I haven't thought about how sorry I am."  
  
"I understand. I suppose it's better than walking around and hitting yourself across the head with a board. So where's Andrew?"  
  
"He's still back at security." Giles looked back over his shoulder. "Arguing over the ridiculous number of DVDs he decided to bring. I'd hope that they'd decide to keep him but I doubt my luck would hold up very long."  
  
"Holy . . . Buffy!" Struggling awkwardly to hold on to both his laptop and his carry-on bag Andrew looked at her across the airport lounge with wide eyes. "You look . . . I mean wow!"  
  
Giles rolled his eyes, "Not even a while."  
  
Buffy smiled a little shyly, "Thank you, Andrew."   
  
* * * * * * *  
  
The small blue sports car darted through and around traffic.  
  
Buffy right hand deftly shifted from one gear to the next. Her silky blond hair flowed freely behind her in the wind blowing through the small, open-topped convertible.  
  
In the passenger seat on the small sports car Andrew was perched outrageously and awkwardly atop Giles lap.   
  
Giles, "Stop wiggling"   
  
Andrew was slightly contrite as he tried to settle down, "Sorry. Sometimes I just get antsy and excited and have trouble staying still."  
  
The Englishman turned and frowned at Buffy. "You're enjoying this far too much."  
  
"Sorry," said Buffy, not bothering to hide her grin as she concentrated on driving. A loud horn sounded and faded off behind them as the car flew through an intersection. "I told you you'd probably be better off if you got a rental. My baby's only got two seats."  
  
"A fact I'll be sure to take into profound consideration next time," Giles said dryly. "Not exactly the most . . . practical . . . choice you could have made."  
  
"I like it," Andrew said defensively.  
  
"You would," Giles snapped. "For now, I guess, I'll just have to deal." He was trying obviously not to move.  
  
A perplexed expression suddenly washed across Andrew's face. He looked back at the older man slowly, "Um . . . Mr. Giles, are you . . ."  
  
"Finish that sentence Andrew and you'll be walking home."  
  
Giles gave Buffy a sharp betrayed look when she suddenly laughed out loud.  
  
* * * * * * *  
  
The small, blue sports car sat quietly in a garage. The engine made faint occasional ticking noises as it cooled. A motorcycle was leaning on it's kick stand off to one side.  
  
The garage door was open.  
  
A few leaves floated aimlessly around inside in a faint breeze.   
  
The interior was clean, uncluttered. Just a few rakes and shovels and similar things hanging on the back wall and a few boxes tucked away in the corner.  
  
The faint distant sound voices from further inside the house.   
  
* * * * * * *  
  
"This is it," Buffy said. "This is home."  
  
"Nice," Giles said looking around the wide open living room. "Remarkably nice actually. You've acquitted yourself quite well."  
  
"Thank you."  
  
Giles looked at the small girl with a slight question, "If you don't mind me asking where's Dawn? Frankly I expected to see her here."  
  
"Out with her friends," Buffy responded, shrugging off her coat. "Making the mistakes she has to make in order to learn what it is to grow up. She'll be back sometime later. Do you want anything? Tea? Coffee? Coke?"  
  
Andrew looked at her pleadingly, "Bathroom?"  
  
Buffy pointed a quiet direction, "That way."  
  
Andrew quickly ran off.  
  
"I have to wonder, though," Giles said slowly. "You could be off seeing the world like the rest of your friends. Action, adventure, a different place every week, a chance to do things many people your age would absolutely love to have the opportunity for . . . yet, you chose to settle down, here, in Rome."  
  
Buffy, softly, "I like the quiet."   
  
Giles smiled at her faintly, "You deserve it. Truly."  
  
"Thank you."  
  
* * * * * * *  
  
Andrew filled his hands with liquid soap and put his hands beneath the faucet. He shut the water off and dried his hands with a towel hanging on a ring to the left of the sink.  
  
Lingering, he picked up a small bottle of perfume that sat on the back of the sink. He sprayed it in a faint mist that hung in the air right in front of his face. He absently took a breath and then suddenly rubbed at his nose roughly.  
  
He crinkled his nose as if that would help, "Wow!"  
  
Putting it back he examined the other bottles lined up behind the sink for a few seconds.  
  
There was a laundry basket in the corner of the bathroom. He picked up a lace bra and held it up to his chest experimentally, posing and watching himself in the mirror for a few moments before putting it back where he found it and wandering back out into the hall, stopping to look at the pictures hanging along the way.  
  
There wasn't the sheer number of pictures that used to hang in Buffy and Dawn's old house, but there was a welcome friendliness here. The faces in the pictures smiled back at him kindly.  
  
Andrew sighed, "I miss Sunnydale."   
  
* * * * * * *  
  
Sitting at her kitchen table, Buffy stared distractedly down at the cup of coffee in her hands, at the faint hint of lighter colored swirls still turning slowly in the cup from when she added and mixed in the creme.  
  
"So . . . you've clearly been able to make a life for yourself here," Giles said. "I mean, beyond demons and Slayers and all that."  
  
Buffy smiled. "Yeah, surprisingly enough. Not that there aren't things in my life that I wish I could change. Not that I . . . don't miss certain things. I suppose everybody has that. But, for the most part . . . I'm happy."  
  
"Then let's try to do our best to keep it that way."  
  
She smiled awkwardly at her Watcher in a strange comradery. A few moments later Buffy furrowed her brow slightly. "Was there . . . something else you wanted to talk to me about?"  
  
"No," the Watcher said slowly, givng her a paternal smile. "Not right this moment."  
  
__________________________________________________  
  
Author's note: I know many of you probably hate me at the moment. To quote Spike "I hate being obvious". You know I'm just teasing you. I promise, we'll get Spuffy soon. It won't be as long as you might think. 


	6. Reflections of Me

Chapter Six  
  
"Reflections of Me"  
  
Spike swung hard, the huge cross in his hands coming around connecting with a loud crunch. Angel's body flew backwards through the air. He impacted with a wall and fell to the floor. Angel struggled to get up and then collapsed at the foot of the wall under the weight of his own exhaustion.  
  
  
  
Spike looked down at the vampire with distaste, "You never knew the real me."  
  
The cross he bore burned him. Smoke sizzled from his hands.   
  
Spike absently tossed the cross aside and approached, speaking to Angel scornfully, "Too busy trying to see your own reflection. Praying . . . that there was someone as disgusting as you in the world . . . so that you could stand to live with yourself. Take a long look hero . . . I'm nothing like you!"  
  
"No," Angel said derisively. His face was bloodied and bruised. "You're less. That's why Buffy never really loved you . . . 'cause you weren't me."  
  
* * * * * * *  
  
Blue eyes opened in the darkness.  
  
Spike threw back the blanket and slipped off the small bed. His bare feet carefully settled on the floor, avoiding the empty bottles that littered area around the bed. He walked slowly across the dim apartment.  
  
Spike opened the fridge. The light was cruel. He let the door slip closed, popped the cap on a brown beer bottle and took a swig. He then put the half-empty bottle on top of the fridge and wandered lifelessly into a near corner of the room and into the bathroom, flipping on the light.  
  
Spike turned on the faucet. The clear, colorless water spiraled down the drain of the empty white porcelain bowl.  
  
He lowered his head, cupped water in his hands and splashed it in his face.   
  
Looked up into the reflection in the mirror. The vampire was bleary eyed. His eyes were a little bit bloodshot. His hair chaotic and mussed. Spike's expression was tired, empty, and hopeless.  
  
None of which was reflected in the mirror. His lack of reflection stared back at him.  
  
Spike walked out of the bathroom and shut off the light.  
  
* * * * * * *  
  
". . . it must be hard . . . to live like that. Surrounded by people, yet destined to be alone. Hope . . . is what drives a man, Buffy. It's what gets him through the day. We all have our hopes, Buffy . . . you and I . . . some simpler than others. If we're honest with ourselves what did he ever have?" Giles asked truthfully. "A pie in the sky dream for a miracle. I'm not sure it was ever really enough . . ."  
  
Buffy looked at her Watcher, dumbfounded. "Stop trying to defend him. He made his own choices . . . just like I did. We've all had our hopes and dreams shattered in pieces on the ground . . . more times than we could have possibly imagined." She shrugged, "To use a phrase my mother used to be fond of 'that's just the way the cookie crumbles'." Buffy couldn't help her stilted grin. "What makes or breaks us is what we do afterwards. Angel made the choice. He joined up with Wolfram & Hart. We're the ones who are going to have to deal with it . . . 'cause, from where I'm sitting, he sure as hell won't."  
  
Giles sighed. He removed his glasses and began to clean them with a soft cloth. "You're right of course. I'm just trying to understand."  
  
Buffy smiled kindly at her Watcher. "Me too," she admitted softly. "And I really wish I could . . . but any way I try to look at it the risk is just too much. I don't know exactly what we should do, but most anything would likely be better than nothing."  
  
Giles looked down at the table . . . exhaled softly . . . finally looked back at her.  
  
He asked, "So . . . how are you . . . I mean, beyond the platitudes? How have you and Dawn really been? What have you been doing?"  
  
"Dawn has school. She goes to a private English school I found that she really likes. She has to wear a uniform though, skirts and field hockey knees and all," the girl chuckled good-heartedly, "but she likes it anyway, weird girl that she is. She has some really nice friends that aren't vampires or witches or werewolves and who don't have any idea about those things except what they see in the crappy movies they like to laugh at, and I have no problems letting her go off on her own with them to hang out."  
  
"What about you?"  
  
"Me? I don't know. I read a lot. Spend some of my time down at the beach. I do a bit to train Slayers when they come through. I keep in touch with everyone on the computer, help them solve whatever problems they have, and sometimes they have quite a few. Give them direction if they need it. I just sit around and try to relax when I get the chance, still absently craving the simpler life. I mean is there really a such thing as a simpler life 'cause I'm beginning to doubt it." She giggled. "But, the way it looks from here, I doubt I'll be getting that anytime soon anyway."  
  
Giles smiled wryly, "Probably not."  
  
Both Buffy and Giles looked up as Andrew strolled back into the room. The boy seemed jaunty, energetic, lost in his own world and momentarily oblivious to anyone around him. Andrew saw a decorative bowl on the counter and smiled brightly.  
  
"Oh, cool . . . M&Ms!" Andrew grabbed a sloppy handful and threw some into his mouth. He looked back and forth at the Slayer and the Watcher sitting awkwardly opposite each-other at Buffy's kitchen table and sighed sadly as Buffy took a sip from her cup of coffee.  
  
"I take it I missed some fireworks, huh?!" He couldn't hide his disappointment. "So . . . fess up. Give me the details . . . how did Buffy take the news about Spike being back?"  
  
Buffy sprayed a mouthful of coffee all over Giles.  
  
Giles wrinkled his nose and looked down at himself disgustedly.  
  
Andrew smiled sheepishly, "Oops!"  
  
* * * * * * *  
  
"Feel my wrath . . . gorilla throwin' barrels."  
  
A playful electronic noise wound down and died.  
  
Sitting on the couch in his apartment, Spike frowned at the television on the stand close in front of him. "Bloody hell!" He leaned forward, reaching above the tv and flipped the reset switch before settling back on the couch and staring intently at the screen.  
  
He abruptly spoke aloud a few moments later, never looking away from the screen, "Really should knock on a bloke's door . . . especially one who's got no qualms about killin' trespassers."  
  
Doyle stood just inside the apartment near the door.  
  
"Come on," Doyle said with a friendly tease as he approached. "Is that any way to talk to your benefactor?"  
  
Spike rolled his eyes.  
  
Doyle stopped and looked toward the television. "What is that? An Atari 2600?!" Crouching down to look at the machine balanced on top of the tv Doyle smiled to himself faintly. A black cord snaked from the machine to the joystick in Spike's hands. "You know I had one of these when I was a kid. Didn't have much, but . . . I had one of these."  
  
Spike raised an eyebrow. "Yeah?! When I was a kid we had playin' cards. I can't help but think that one of us got gypped."  
  
Doyle shrugged, "You're makin' up for it now. Never too late to account for a deprived childhood." He settled down on the couch next to Spike. "I'm just a little concerned about you. You haven't exactly been out in the field lately."  
  
Spike frowned at the man disbelievingly, "In case you haven't been keepin' up with the sports page I got my bloody hands cut off by that deranged Slayer you sent me after."  
  
Doyle lowered his eyes, "Yeah, I'm sorry bout that." He smiled half-heartedly, "But hey . . . your good old buddies at Wolfram & Hart managed to reattach them just fine. You can still sit around here and . . . play video games."  
  
"Rehab mate." Spike held up a hand and wiggled his fingers, "Workin' out the digits."  
  
Spike stood up and went to the fridge fetched two beers. When he sat back down on the couch he handed one to Doyle. Spike took a drink and looked down at the fingers holding the brown bottle. He said, "You've got no idea how rotten this feels."  
  
Doyle laughed, "Amazingly enough I do. Yeah, got my hand cut off a few years back. Line of duty kind of thing. So believe me when I tell you I can feel your pain."  
  
Spike looked at the man and raised an eyebrow. "Half of it anyway. Give ya that!"   
  
"Just, you know . . . don't forget you've got a job to do. The Powers-That-Be are countin' on their champion. So are all the other helpless people . . ."  
  
"Don't need a pep talk, Doyle. Already planning on goin' out," Spike said, taking the time to look at the other man seriously. "Just as soon as you get one of your fancy visions and tell me when and where."  
  
"Right," Doyle said awkwardly. "Good."  
  
Spike's blue eyes narrowed, "You don't get visions, do you?"  
  
Doyle swallowed, "Actually . . . no."  
  
Spike smirked. "I didn't think so."  
  
"You knew!?"  
  
"Had an inkling."  
  
"Then . . . why'd you play along? Why'd you act like . . ."  
  
Spike shrugged, "Got nothin' better to do. You know, aside from sitting here and playing with my bloody joystick all day." Spike smirked slightly. "It was a distraction is all. Gave me time to get out of my head for a little while and suss out the mystery that was you." Spike huffed, " 'sides, I was still out there savin' lives, and that's no small thing."  
  
"Wow. You amaze me. All that planning and all that effort and you go and see right through it from the start. Teach me to think I'm smarter than I really am."  
  
"So how'd you do it?" asked Spike. "I mean how'd you know where to send me an' all if you weren't exactly gettin' the Technicolor visions."  
  
"I've got a connection . . . inside Wolfram & Hart." Doyle smiled shyly, "A girl. She feeds me the information. I pass it along to you."  
  
"A girl!" Spike laughed, "Of course you do! Let me take a wild guess as to the bird's name . . . Eve." He watched the man's reaction and shook his head. "Figures. I take it that idiot ex-Watcher Sirk was yours too."  
  
Doyle smiled, "We were just trying to get the hero concept into your turns out not so thick head. And if you had killed Angel . . . Oo, bonus."  
  
Spike grinned, "You really don't like Angel do you?"  
  
"Who do you think chopped off my hand?! I spent . . . almost a year trying to live without it. Every time I had trouble opening a bottle or stopped and looked at the guitar in the back of my closet I couldn't help but think of him. So . . . yeah, I've got a bit of a grudge."  
  
Doyle sighed, "But . . . that doesn't change the essential truth. Every time I had a problem with Wolfram & Hart . . . hell, when I tried to find the impossible way out, it was Angel that I turned to, Angel that helped me despite everything else. When I heard that they had bought Angel I couldn't help but think 'Who would the next guy turn to?' Who would they have now that Angel was gone?"  
  
"So you turned to me."  
  
Doyle smiled, "You'd be amazed how easy it almost was. With my connection on the inside and some major luck things almost seemed to fall into place all on their own. Making you corporeal took a little longer, but . . . we knew we could do it with enough time. Presto, the people had a new champion. And maybe I'm just a little bit along the way of making up for some of the bad things I've done."   
  
Doyle sighed and ran his fingers through his hair, "I thought really hard about a lot of things after I quit Wolfram & Hart. Why things happened the way they did. Why I was who I was. And I came to a rather simple revelation. It's not all about providence or prophecy . . . much as certain people would like to believe. There's prophecies sure, I've seen enough of 'em, but . . . in the end, I think it's mostly about people. The decisions that they make and the direction they choose. I made bad decisions and people got hurt along the way. Angel made a bad decision and who knows what will happen. Maybe you'll go a bit into balancing out Angel. Maybe not." Doyle smiled at the vampire slyly, "At the least you'll at least piss 'im off."  
  
"I do that all right!" Spike looked at the other man sharply, "So I ask why you? Who the hell drafted you into reenlisting this bloody dusted vampire in the good fight?"   
  
Doyle, still calm, "I'm just a guy, trying to find a way to do what's right. Everyone has to play their part, don't ya think." He looked at the expression Spike was giving him and had sense enough to looked slightly rebuked. "Hey, we all got things to atone for."  
  
After a few moments Doyle leaned forward on the couch slightly.  
  
"If I could make a suggestion to you, Spike, it would be just this," said Doyle seriously, "don't put all of your faith in prophecies. In the end, you'll likely only end up disappointed. Just be the guy you are. The guy you've slowly changed yourself into. The one you've tried so hard to be. Be yourself. Play your part, do the right thing as much as you can, and hopefully the rest of the crap will work itself out on its own."  
  
"Yeah," Spike responded softly. "Hopefully."  
  
* * * * * * *  
  
Buffy sobbed out loud, lowered her head, her blond hair falling down to obscure her face. Her small hands coming up under her hanging hair so that she could bury her face in her palms.  
  
Giles and Andrew were still and watched her silently.  
  
Her sobs suddenly shifted into the sounds of hysterical laughter. She curled up on herself with the force of it, her face nearly buried in the table.  
  
She finally raised herself from the table, brushed back her hair with her fingers, and looked at both of them with big, shiny eyes. Her lip and chin trembled.  
  
Fear and hope mingled in her voice as well as her eyes.  
  
"Spike's alive?!"  
  
___________________________________________  
  
Author's note: Boy, this chapter was a pain in the ass. Trying to sort the whole mess out in my head, all the dialogue, the choice of tone, and the transitions. Pain in the ass! It certainly took a hell of a lot longer to get out compared to the others. Hopefully the next chapter will be easier. I hope it turned out okay. Review and tell me what you think. It was the best I could do.  
  
Again I'm stealing a bit of dialogue from episodes, but i'm trying to go someplace completely different. Before the 100th episode nothing Doyle/Lindsey did struck me as completely evil. Morally ambiguious maybe, but not evil. I decided to go with that.  
  
Spike also never struck me as particularly nieve or stupid. He always seemed quite smart actually. I like him my way. 


	7. Somewhere I Belong

Chapter Seven  
  
"Somewhere I Belong"  
  
Small feet.  
  
  
  
Sneakers pounding the cracked pavement in a regular rhythm.  
  
A girl, medium length blond hair streaming behind her, running at a terrified sprint down a dark ally.  
  
Shadows. Darkness and occasional shades of lighter shadow moving like a veil across the soft features of her face.   
  
Something caught her from behind. Grabbed her. A slight push. The girl tumbled to the pavement. She turned herself over, ended up looking back the way she had come, at the figure barely hidden in the shadows.  
  
"I would have given you anything," said the shadowed figure standing over her. "Everything I had. Everything I am. I would have turned the world upside down for you. Ran the gamut of heaven and hell. Even killed for you. Anything, if it would have even just earned me a smile."   
  
The figure took a step closer, emerging into the light. He had the face of a vampire before it melted away. A somewhat small man, unassuming, but with a depth of emotion behind the facade. The man cocked his head slightly, looking down at her with patently soulful eyes, "I loved you."   
  
The girl's face turned hard. "What makes you think that I could ever love you." She looked him up and down derisively. "Look at you. It's disgusting . . . what you've made of yourself. What kind of life could we . . ."  
  
"And that's reason enough to stomp on my heart," asked the man angrily, taking another step closer. "To rip out whatever shreds of dignity I can still claim as my own." He looked at her with bitter accusation. "Why would you . . ." He visibly swallowed. "Better that you had just left me be, than to leave me like . . . this.  
  
"You think I didn't want to be with you. You think something inside of didn't scream at me to hold on and never let go."  
  
"I love you. Shouldn't that be enough."  
  
She gave the man a sad look. Her face trembled. A tear rolled down her cheek. "It just won't work. I'm sorry."  
  
His face thinned. "You're sorry all right," said the embittered man. His closed fist crashed down on her cheek. She let out a pained squeal. The man reached out, grabbed her by the shoulders, and tossed her off to the side. Her body flew through the air and hit the painted brick wall at one side of the ally before falling to the ground.  
  
The man turned toward her, then looked down suddenly to see something that had just punched out through his chest. The splintery and bloody tip of a piece of wood stuck out of his breast. A moment later his body crumbled into a gray cloud of falling ash, revealing the platinum haired man standing behind where he once stood, holding a long shaft of wood in his hands.  
  
The man turned and looked for the girl.  
  
The girl lay sprawled uncomfortably on a pile of loose brick and abandoned scraps of lumber. She was completely still. Her blond hair lay elegantly around her shoulders. There was blood high up across her forehead.  
  
Spike lowered his eyes. Released an unnecessary breath. Turned and walked away, disappearing up the dark ally. A few moments later he tossed the shaft of wood in his hands carelessly aside.  
  
* * * * * * *  
  
"Buffy?"  
  
Giles looked through the door. The darker shape of a small figure could be seen sitting quietly on the large bed in the dark room.  
  
"Buffy, there you are. I was getting worried."  
  
He fumbled with the switch by the door and turned on the lights.  
  
"You've been up here a while," said Giles. He came over and sat beside her on the bed. "I know it's a lot to handle."   
  
"You have no idea."  
  
Giles released a breath. "I wasn't sure if I should even tell you. But, you at least deserve to know. I remember what happened between us in Sunnydale, and I don't wish to see anything ever come between us like that again."  
  
"I feel like I'm walking in a dream. This can't be real. None of this. These past months. I've been walking around in a sea of smiling faces. There was a hole in the world. You would have thought that someone else would have noticed."  
  
"He asked Andrew not to even tell you."  
  
"What?!" She looked at Giles with dark, shiny eyes. "He wouldn't do that! He . . ." She lowered her face to her hands and cried.  
  
"You've made a life for yourself here," Giles told her finally, in a soft reasonable voice, "in spite of all of the challenges that you've faced. A good life, and Spike . . . from what Andrew tells me, is beginning to make a go at creating a life for himself in Los Angeles. A life without you. Just . . . let him go, Buffy. What the two of you had wasn't healthy. It wasn't good for you. And it wasn't good for Spike."  
  
Buffy looked up at the watcher desperately, "But it doesn't have to be . . ."  
  
"You were right, some of the things you said back in Sunnydale. Spike is a good man. I had just never allowed myself to see it. A great man. But now you have the opportunity for something more. A life Spike could never give you, no matter how much he might hope he could. Are you sure you want to give all of that up?"  
  
  
  
* * * * * * *  
  
The body flew backwards and crashed through the boarded up window. Pieces of shattered wood fell to the floor. Some still barely clung to the window frame, dangling there precariously from rusty nails.  
  
The vampire lay where he landed for the briefest moment before settling to the ground in a ripple of dust.  
  
Inside the house, Spike turned his attention away from the shattered window, to the three other vampires standing across from him. He faced them, calm and expressionless.  
  
Standing beside him, holding a ready stake, Doyle grinned, "Who's next?"  
  
Doyle dropped low as the vampire came at him, grabbed hold of its jacket as best he could in the last moment, and twisted his body around with the impact of it hitting him. The motion tossed the stronger vampire through the air over Doyle's shoulder, it hit the floor hard, raising up a cloud of dust. Doyle scrambled over to where the vampire lay, and before it had time to do anything to stop him, drove his stake down through its chest.  
  
Doyle turned, and in the light of one of the kerosene lanterns that lit the abandoned building, saw Spike fight the other two vampires. Spike moved between the two like he was dancing. They struck out at him but never quite managed to touch him. Doyle watched as Spike grabbed one vampire, turned its head and snapped its neck, and then drove his stake through the body as it fell, before it even had a chance to hit the floor.  
  
The other vampire came at him. Spike reached over his shoulder, pulled a short wooden staff from a sleeve on his back. Stabbed out into the vampire's chest even as he raised it, arcing the vampire up and over him, still impaled on the end of the staff. The vampire flew through the air and slammed hard into the wall, then dusted as it tumbled to the floor.  
  
Doyle stood up, brushing the dust off his clothes.  
  
"Is there anyone actually alive in here?"  
  
Spike looked at the stairs at one side of the room and then closed his eyes for a moment. Cocked his head slightly. Opened his eyes, looked at Doyle and shook his head.  
  
Doyle let out a breath, "So what now?"  
  
Spike silently grabbed one of the kerosene lanterns that lit the room and threw it at the stairs. The glass globe shattered. The flames spread.  
  
* * * * * * *  
  
Giles got up and left the room.  
  
Buffy sat quietly on the bed. Staring quietly out into space.  
  
A single tear rolled down her cheek.  
  
* * * * * * *  
  
Spike stood by the corner of a building, quietly smoking a cigarette.  
  
Across the street and further down the block a building burned. Bright light bathing the street in a muted glow. Huge orange flames rising up to consume it.   
  
Spike lingered. Smoking his cigarette. Light flickering in his eyes as he watched the building burn.  
  
Spike took the cigarette from his mouth with two fingers and silently exhaled a breath of smoke. Lowered his hand to his side and dropped it. He turned and walked away.  
  
__________________________________________________  
  
Author's note: You didn't think I'd make it easy, did you. I won't be too bad, but I thought that some things needed to be said.  
  
The title of this chapter is from a some by "Linkin Park" that applies perfectly to Spike.  
  
I've gotten a few reviews criticising my grammar. I'm well aware that my use of the language would give an English teacher fits. I sometimes manage sentences without even using a verb. I don't care. I write it to flow. I try to keep a certain poetry to the words. I'm particularly proud of the transition between Spike and Giles in the previous chapter. Yes, Giles was talking about Angel, but the transition applied many of those things to Spike as well. Poetry. This fic has been something of an experiment. I've never told you what anyone is thinking, with the exception of a single word by Angel in the first chapter. I've never just stated anything that isn't happening in the moment, with the exception of where I couldn't help it, namely Buffy's history in Europe in ch. 2, and even then I was very careful about what I wrote, trying to keep it brief and add a certain sense of poetry to the words. I may not always be successful, but I try to let the images speak for themselves. The style is a little different, but I like it.  
  
If you like this I'd love it if you'd check out another fic I've recently written. It's a Buffy/Lord of the Rings crossover called "So Lost, Too Far From Home". I know Buffy/LotR crossover is a term that often normally means crap-tacular but I'm trying to do something cool. It's Spuffy, if that helps any. The next chapter of that should be out as early as tomorrow if I can polish up the last details. Check it out.  
  
As always, please review. 


	8. I Walk With Heroes

Chapter Eight

"I Walk With Heroes"

"We crapped out again in Sweden," said Gunn, frustrated. "Buffy's people got there first."

Angel was sitting behind the desk in his office. He had been looking in the direction of the windows along the side of the room with a rare smile on his face. Beyond was the bright and clear daytime landscape of Los Angeles.

"We'll find some girls that the Scoobies haven't quite managed to contact yet. It's bound to happen soon enough. We'll have our Slayers. So sit down. Relax."

Gunn raised an eyebrow and smiled back at the vampire. "You're in a good mood. Any particular reason why?" 

"I'm planning on lunch with Nina soon, since you ask. So let's try to get this meeting done quick."

"So, you and werewolf girl, huh. How's that going?"

"Carefully," Angel answered tersely. "Where next after Sweden?"

Gunn reached over the desk and handed Angel a thin stack of files, "For now we're still looking at these."

* * * * * * *

_The muffled noise of a heartbeat._

_ Hands, pushing wide leaves of fauna and underbrush out of the way. Moving quickly through the jungle. An almost tumble. A hand, fingers splayed in the thick mud catching the fall. The sound of feet, scrambling in the moist earth._

_ The sound of breath. Breathless._

_ "Somebody help me!"_

_ The noises of something following through the jungle. Loud. A branch breaking close by with a loud splintering crack. _

_ "Somebody, please!"_

_ A clumsy foot caught on a root. A tumble. A perspective on the world abruptly rolled into a brief chaos._

_ A girl laying on the ground. Scrambling for purchase. The mud beneath not giving her any._

_ A growl out of the darkness. A hulking human shape coming up out of the dark over her like a wraith._

_ A glimpse of a distended brow. Yellow eyes. Sharp white teeth._

_ The figure leaned down, tilting its head to the side. Fingers, fisting into the mud. She opened her mouth. A breathless moan came from her._

_ Dust settled down over her. _

_ Her hand, held up. Her fingers wrapped around a sharpened piece of wood._

_ The girl trembled. Breathless._

_ A form standing in the further shadows. A slender shape like a person, but not moving like a person. Each tiny graceful motion full of ruthless vitality. "No help. Just the kill. We . . . are . . . alone."_

_ Lightning flashed in the distant sky, throwing everything into a brief stark contrast._

_ Dark eyes, hard and full of steel._

_ The shape in the shadow was simply gone the next moment. _

_ Still laying on the ground, the girl reached up and touched her neck. Looked down at her hand. There was blood._

Hazel eyes came open. A girl, shoulder length brown hair mussed by sleep. Perfect, delicate complexion. A long, elegant frame entangled in crimson colored bed sheets. The naked length of a sculpted leg, the sheets bunched high up on the thigh. Soft, pale skin.

A loud noise in the room. Three sharp raps. The sound of someone knocking.

"Miss Stansfield, are you awake?"

A middle-aged woman with skin the color of mocha cautiously opened the bedroom door. The woman's dark hair was clipped tight behind her head.

The girl in the bed groaned. Stretched languorously. The heel of her foot dug into the sheets. "Yes, Rosie. The creature stirs."

Rosie entered the bedroom, smiling cheerily.

"Your mother told me to make certain you don't sleep the day away." She opened the heavy curtains over the windows. Bright sunlight fell across the bed. The younger girl held up a defensive hand and squinted at the brightness. "Come down quickly and I'll make you some breakfast."

Rosie left the room.

The girl on the bed sighed, "Right!"

She lithely rolled out of bed. Padded across the room holding the crimson bed sheet against her body.

* * * * * * *

A window in a sparse dirty room with a view of a small Spanish style villa in the near distance. The villa sat at the top of a rise. Small brick pillars stood at either side of the end of the driveway that wound down the fifty yards or so from the villa toward the road. The road in front of the villa, where it was visible, sloped down at the gentlest of inclines. 

A man, leaning over the eyepiece of a telescope with a huge curved lens the size of a gallon bottle of milk. The large telescope was set on a tripod beside the window. Faint rainbow coronas were hinted at in the faint reflection of sunlight in the lens.

A girl, standing at the end of the villa's driveway, raising her hands over her head in an elegant stretch. The bottom edge of her shirt lifted with the motion just enough to show the barest hint of her midriff. The girl finally started down the street at a brisk jog. 

"She's moving."

* * * * * * *

A small man stood on a corner in the narrow streets. He leaned against a building and smoked a cigarette. The man exhaled a silent breath of smoke.

People walking past him in the narrow streets. Many of the people were dark or mocha skinned. More than a few of them were dressed in colorful clothes.

The girl suddenly appeared out of a side street and jogged past him, never giving the unassuming man a glance.

He reached up, lifted the collar of his khaki-colored shirt and spoke into it.

"I got her."

He dropped his cigarette on the street and moved to follow her. He kept a distance back. The girl barely in view up ahead.

A few moments later he slapped at something on his neck and bit out a storm of silent curses. 

"_God-damn flies!_"

* * * * * * *

A few fruits laying in a wicker basket. A few flies buzzing them. A hand brushed the flies away with a careless gesture and picked up one of them.

Two voices bickered unintelligibly.

An open air market.

Tables cover with wares and open booths lined up on either side of the narrow street. The air was thick with voices as vendors actively wheedled and negotiated. People, a faceless throng, moved from table to table, browsing.

The girl jogged around the corner into the market. She jogged slowly down the street, weaving carefully between the various passerby.

A little further down she turned between two of the booths and entered a very narrow ally.

A man abruptly stepped out from around the corner directly in front of her. She stopped about ten, twelve feet short of him.

The man wore a loose shirt. Dusty blue jeans. Scuffed and worn boots. The line of his chin was bristled and not recently shaved. He had dark brown hair. There was a dark patch over one eye. A pistol strapped in a holster at his hip.

The man's gaze as he looked at her narrowed slightly with a question.

"Jane Stansfield?" 

* * * * * * *

The small man in the khaki shirt looked around the market desperately. He turned in circles. People in the marketplace moved around him in a chaotic mass.

The girl wasn't one of them.

His mouth thinned. Teeth clenched together.

"_Shit!_"

* * * * * * *

"Don't worry, Jane," Xander said, holding up his open hands at shoulder height in front of him. "I won't hurt you." A hint of a smile slowly slipped across Xander's face, "Actually, I pretty much doubt I could. You could probably kick my ass in a second. Not that that thought isn't strangely appealing, but . . . I just wanna talk."

The girl, Jane, gifted Xander with an incredulous and bewildered expression. 

"Who the hell are you? How do you know my name? And don't you think approaching young girls in allies is just a wee bit creepy?"

"I'm a friend," Xander said softly and kindly. "And I'm about to tell you the rest . . ."

* * * * * * *

"What do you mean 'he lost her'?" a woman asked.

She was pacing back and forth in the dirty room. She had dark hair. Her lips were bright red. She wore a tight red sleeveless shirt that clung to her every curve. Her tight, red leather pants looked as if they were painted on. Long, black gloves extended up both her arms to just past her elbow.

She was speaking to a man at one side of the room. He sat in a cheap plastic and aluminum chair beside a window. He held an AR-15 assault rifle across his lap. A large telescope sat on a tripod between him and the window.

The man looked up at her and raised an eyebrow. 

"I mean it just like it sounds."

"Bite me, Ernie." The woman grit her teeth and rolled her eyes. "Fucking amateur hour, 'round here. Un_-frickin'_-believable. I should have just followed her myself."

The man looked her up and down and raised an eyebrow. "Oh, yeah," he said dryly, "you're inconspicuous."

She gave him a hard look, "What is _that_ supposed to mean?"

* * * * * * *

"I don't understand. I'm a what?!"

The girl looked across the ally at Xander like he had a cat on his head.

"You're a Slayer, Jane," Xander repeated evenly. "I know you've heard the term before. In your dreams. In the places in your heart you keep isolated from the world. You have to have noticed . . . you're not . . . you're not like other people. There are things about you that make you different. The strength is only one of them. You go out running like this . . . what? . . . every day. You've got energy to _burn_. So you run a little bit further, a little bit harder. But . . . it's never enough. There's always so much further you can go. Am I right?"

Jane just shifted her feet and looked back at Xander silently. 

"The truth is . . . that there are some things about you that frighten even yourself. You probably wake up in the middle of the night sometimes, every fear you ever wished you didn't have crawling out at you in the dark. Wake up _alone_ . . . no matter how many people you surround yourself with."

She swallowed and then suddenly gave him a hard look. A look that went far deeper than her eyes. "Oh, what do you know about it!?"

"Only what I've seen," responded Xander. "One of my best friends is a Slayer. _The_ Slayer. She's been on the wagon for the past eight years, in a crappy little has been town across the pond in California. A regular Batman prowling the night every night like a superhero, though maybe Power Girl or Wonder Woman is the better metaphor." Xander couldn't seem to help the faint smile, "Buffy always liked Power Girl, though Wonder Woman does have the virtue of the outfit." Xander stopped a moment and shook his head. "Back to the point. I helped Buffy the best I could, given my distinct lack of any superhuman powers. She, on the other hand, could always lean on me and her other friends when it got too tough, though in my case not quite as often as I might have liked. That answer enough for you? You didn't think I got this job just by virtue of my good looks, did you?"

Jane smirked. "Obviously not."

"_Hey!_" Xander gave her a faux insulted look for a moment before he couldn't even manage that. The faint smiled returned. "At least you're getting all jokey with me. That's a kind of progress, isn't it? The reason I know these things is that for years I watched what it did to Buffy. And not all of it was of the good. Though, much as I love her, a lot of that was 'cause of Buffy. She didn't always handle it the best way she could've. I stood by her. I was the one who saw, so to speak. I've also talked to a lot of the other girls like you that I've found. So, yeah, I know quite a bit of what you're probably feeling."

Jane, quietly, "Somehow I doubt it."

"I don't know what it's like to feel certain kinds of cramps either. Not exactly a virtue I was built with. Doesn't mean there aren't certain kinds of empathy . . . And I may have just gone too far. Just so you know I sometimes start to joke when it gets too tense. Sometimes it's weird."

"I noticed." Jane shifted uncomfortably and gave him a few awkward looks. "I'm just curious. What happened to . . .?"

"My eye, you mean," gesturing with one hand at the black patch one side of his face. "You probably don't wanna know."

* * * * * * *

"Our little girl is home." The man sat in the cheap plastic chair and leaned over the eyepiece on the side of the telescope. The fingers of his left hand slowly adjusted the focus ring that encircled the eyepiece. "And she has guests."

"_What? _ Lemme see." The younger man in the khaki shirt scrambled over to the telescope and leaned down over it as the other man stepped back.

He went over to a nearby small table and picked up something. It seemed to be a file. Inside were a stack of photos. He sorted through them quickly 'til he seemed to find the one he was looking for.

He picked up a pair of binoculars and walked back to the window. He looked through them. The girl, a man, and slender red-head girl standing together on the lawn in front of the villa. The three of them were talking. He lowered the binoculars for a moment and looked over at the younger man.

"It's _him_."

"You sure, Ernie?" Leaning down a bit further and still staring harder into the eyepiece of the telescope. "It could just be someone that . . ."

"The eyepatch is pretty distinctive."

"_Fuck!_"

The young man got up from the telescope and kicked at the angrily at the chair. The cheap plastic chair flipped into the nearby wall and landed on the floor.

The older man sighed, "Come on, Dave. Let's start packing up the stuff. We're done here. Time to go home."

* * * * * * *

"You'll never know what it's like. You'll never have to stop and wonder about your place in the world. People like you and my friend Vi here, you were born with a purpose. There's _meaning_ in the fact that you're here. I imagine that probably frightens you. And it should. But in other ways it must be liberating. People like me struggle all their lives looking for one shred of the meaning to that life that you'll find every day. You _mean_ something. Isn't that what everyone wants to hear?"

Jane looked back and forth between Xander and Vi. They stood on the lawn if front of her home. The other girl, Vi, was slender. Short red hair. An eclectic outfit of strange mismatched styles that somehow came together. Vi stood beside Xander and watched Jane kindly. 

"What do you want from me?"

"Only whatever you want to give," Xander said gently. "You have a gift, Jane. The opportunity to really make a difference in this world. Not many people can say that so clearly. In some ways you're lucky that way, but . . . with great power comes great responsibility. I know that's a little Uncle Ben, but it's true. What you want to do with that is the big question. We'll do whatever is in our power to help. To start with we'll probably give you a scholarship to a really good private school. We don't have our own yet, but . . . we have others that we work with. And you can eventually decide for yourself how you can be of help."

Jane swallowed. She looked at the two of them nervously, "Well, I . . . I don't have much school left. I'll be graduating this year."

"That's good." Xander slowly nodded and smiled awkwardly. "If you decide not to come with us, and it is your choice, we'd still like to keep in touch with you. You know, just touch base every once in a while. Whatever happens will be up to you."

Vi smiled at the other girl kindly, "No pressure, Jane." 

Jane hesitated. Opened and closed her mouth for a moment before any actual words came out. "Can I . . . Can I have time to think?"

"Yeah. Sure. We can, um . . . come back tomorrow."

"No." Jane held up a hand. "Not like that. Can I just have a few minutes? I think I already know what I want to do. It's just wrapping my brain around it that's the problem. I'm just . . . I just want a few quiet moments to sort this out."

"Okay." Xander smiled. "We'll be here. We won't be going anywhere."

* * * * * * *

"What do you mean we're _packing_?" asked the woman. "I'm not exactly an employee of Wolfram & Hart like you two. I'm only doing this because someone met my price, and I lose a good size piece of what I was promised if I don't bring home the girl. Not exactly what you could call an enticement to get on the plane empty handed. Say it with me now Com-miss-ion."

Ernie sighed as he rolled up something and tucked it into a duffel bag. "I'm not exactly happy to be going home like this myself, Miss Raiden. But we do have our orders."

She rolled her eyes. "Blah. Blah. Polysyllabic blah. You were saying?"

He chuckled. "Not exactly the most professional attitude there. I can't believe you say you don't play that well with others. Remarkable that. Never would have believed it." He looked up as the younger soldier in the khaki shirt suddenly came through the door into the back room. "Dave, you got the scope all packed up yet?"

"Our girl just left the villa. Looked like she's going for a walk."

Ernie shrugged, "Kinda irrelevant at this point, don't you think?!" He continued stuffing more things into the duffel bag.

Miss Raiden looked back and forth between the two men across the room from her. Her head tilted. An idea suddenly fell across her face.

"Let's steal her."

"_What?!_" The two soldiers looked at her sharply.

"We could grab her," she argued. "Quick. Easy. Make the bitch the offer after we already have her. With the amount of money we're talkin' 'bout the little girl is bound to take it. Come on, Ernie. We'll be happy. Angel will be happy. The girl should certainly be happy. And we'll all be out of here and long gone before Xander Harris and his Super friends even know anything went down."

  


______________________________________________________________________________

_Author's note: I made a joke about cramps. What's wrong with me? Major apologies to anyone who actually read it._

_The title of this chapter is from a line by Fred in the "Hole in the World" episode. I like that ep, but don't expect me to kill Fred anytime soon in this. Not gonna happen._

_This is my first chapter that focuses largely on original characters. I hope they're cool enough to hold their own with the others. I kinda like Jane._

_This chapter took a while to write. I hope you like it. At least you got a chapter out of it that's about twice as long as most of the others. I'll admit Xander isn't exactly my favorite character, but I hope I did him justice. My ability to write a character an get inside their head is usually determined by how much I associate myself with them, which means Spike is pretty easy, even when sometime I wish he wasn't. Buffy is easy. Andrew is so easy it frightens me. I understand these characters. I'm not sure how much I understand Xander._

_On another completely unrelated note I watched some of the early S6 episodes recently. Does anyone know any reason for all of the shirts with numbers in those first few S6 eps. Dawn, Willow & Xander all have shirts with big numbers on them in the eps. It's just weird is all. BtVS was always full of hidden depth and meaning. Does that mean anything? All I know is thinking about it makes my head hurt._


	9. Only the Good Die Young

Chapter Nine

"Only the Good Die Young"

"I hate this," Buffy said, heartfelt.

They were at her house in Sunnydale. They living room was packed tight with bodies. A room full of young girls, all of them looking at her.

"I hate being here," Buffy told them. "I hate that _you_ have to be here. I hate that there's evil, and that it's growing, and that I was chosen to fight it. I wish, a whole lot of the time, that I hadn't been." Buffy gave a few of them a brief look full of quiet accusation, "I know a lot of you wish I hadn't been either.

"But this isn't about wishes . . ."

* * * * * * *

Vi looked across at Xander. Her eyes drifted away, back at him again. Vi's spread fingers running back through her red hair. Her voice came awkwardly, "Do you really feel that way?"

"What?"

"Meaningless," she clarified. "Like you said to Jane," she added nervously. "I know you've . . . _lost _. . . so much. More than anyone should ever have to lose. Isn't there anything left in your life that's worth anything? Anyone?"

Vi watched Xander breathlessly as he looked back at her and held her eyes, awaiting his answer.

* * * * * * *

Jane walked.

Her hands were in her pockets. Her head held low.

People on the street walked around her. She didn't seem to notice them. Too lost in her thoughts.

A soft noise from somewhere nearby, like the faintest whisper.

Jane stopped. Reached up slowly, her fingers touching the side of her neck where it met the slope of her shoulder. 

She slowly lowered her hand and looked down at it blankly. There was a hint of blood. A tiny dart held between her thumb and middle finger. 

Her legs suddenly went loose beneath her. She landed on the road in an awkward spill of loose limbs and didn't move again.

Her hand, limp on the road, the palm facing up. The small tranquilizer dart lay on the ground just beyond the reach of her fingers, the tiny needle at the tip a faint glimmer in the sunlight.

* * * * * * *

"Sometimes it's . . . _painful_," Xander admitted slowly. "Some days it's almost more than I can take. I wake up and just lay there and try to find a reason just to get myself out of bed."

"Is it really that bad?" Vi asked cautiously. She swallowed slowly. "Do I have to worry that one day I'll be left doing this on my own? Xander, you've gotta move on. Put the bad things behind you. I was in Sunnydale. I lost people too. But you can't let that be the only thing that defines you for the rest of your life." 

Xander smiled at the slayer, and shook his head. "I said '_sometimes_'," he said, barely containing his laughter. "What's with all the drama? I swear, sometimes you're even worse than Andrew."

Vi laughed and gave him a playful shove, "Shut up."

She met his eye and smiled at him. A few moments later she looked away. "It hasn't been easy for any of us, you know. But some things are what they are. They can't be taken back, no matter how much you sometimes might wish you could." 

* * * * * * *

"This isn't about wishes," Buffy told them. "This is about choices . . .

"I never had one. A choice. I was chosen. And I have to accept that. I'm not asking you to accept anything.

"You see, this is the part where you make a choice."

* * * * * * *

"I didn't understand at the time," Vi said, quietly insightful. Momentarily self-absorbed. Lost in herself, in her thoughts. "Why did Buffy act like it was this awful burden? _She_ had the strength to defend herself. She didn't have to hide behind others in the hope she wouldn't be seen. I just thought having strength like her had a certain freedom to it. She didn't have to fear the vampires or the bringers. She wasn't terrified of the uncertainty. She didn't have to fear."

Xander quietly disagreed. "Yeah she did."

"Yeah," Vi agreed. "She did." She looked up, met Xander's eye briefly and hesitated. Time enough for a breath. "I don't think I ever got that. Not until it was me. I was _terrified_. I don't think it ever occurred to me that Buffy was too. That she just forced herself to bury the fear and soldiered on.

"It was hard to get, what it ultimately meant to be a slayer.

"To flee to Sunnydale . . .

"To have Willow do that spell . . .

"To have whatever pretense of normality in your life stripped away. I don't think you'll ever know what it's like, to be hunted. To be sought after to kill. Not because you were in the wrong place at the wrong time, or who you choose as friends. But coming after you, in particular. Because of who you are. What you are. Things that are as much a part of you as breathing." 

* * * * * * *

Jane blinked slowly. Her cheek was pressed to the road surface. Her breath stirring up small wisps of dust. The blurred shapes of three people approached. Stood over her like towers in the blurry fog of her mind.

"Nice shot, Ernie," one of them said as he briefly crouched down beside her. "You got her right in the neck."

Another deeper voice, steady but full of nerves. "Shut up. I don't like being out in the open like this."

"Just grab her, guys." A woman's voice. "Let's get this freak show over with so we can get the hell out of here."

Shuffling noises, the shallow blur suddenly a bright motion of color as her body was lifted from the road.

* * * * * * *

"I thought it would be so easy," said Vi. "Simple." Her voice was bleak. "Become a Slayer and all of the fears that woke me in the middle of the night would be nothing but a shitty memory.

"But preternatural strength didn't save Amanda . . . or Spike . . . or Chao Ann. It didn't stop Rona from bleeding to death in the back of the bus.

"I'm just saying, none of us have had it easy. I don't think we ever will. That's not to say that I don't like my life. 'Cause, ya know, me and you . . . travelin' the world . . . It's kinda cool. You even have kind of an Indiana Jones thing goin'. Ya know, with the coat, and the gun on your hip, and the boots." She smirked at him, "Definitely of the good."

Xander gave her a sly sideways look. "Would that make you the Kate Capshaw to my Dr. Jones?"

Vi made a face, "Oh, God no!" She wrinkled her nose. "She's so whiny. If I'm gonna be anyone I'll be . . . What's the name of the girl in_ Raiders_?" Vi suddenly seemed to come back to herself and shook her head slightly, ". . . and I can't believe you made me watch all those movies. I'm in desperate need of a life."

Xander smiled, "Me too."

The red-head chuckled, "Then I guess we get to be lifeless together."

* * * * * * *

They dropped Jane's limp body on the floor.

The world spun around her in dreamy circles. Three chaotic voices, two deeper, one softer, trading machine gun words in the swirling din. 

* * * * * * *

For a brief moments, standing there, Vi suddenly seemed unsteady on her feet.

She pressed a hand, fingertips, softly to her forehead, as if she had a headache.

She nearly seemed to stumble standing still. Almost falling before she was steady on her feet again.

"Vi," asked Xander softly. "You okay?"

"Yeah," Vi said, blinking as few times. She seemed slightly puzzled. "I just got dizzy for a second there."

Still distractedly not quite meeting Xander's eye, she shook her head.

A few moments later Vi straightened under his scrutiny with weight of the realization.

"It's Jane," she said simply, looking across at Xander with wide eyes. "Something happened to Jane."

* * * * * * *

Jane's eyes opened and blinked uneasily.

She was looking down, at the moment seemingly unseeing of the dirty floor of the room she was in and the metal bracelets on each of her wrists with thin chains hanging from them.

Jane groaned, raising a hand and pressing the fingers against her head. She suddenly coughed dryly.

A shadow moved across the floor.

Dave, standing over her. A small man in a button-up khaki colored shirt. He had a clear glass of water in his hand, holding it out to her. "Here, drink some of this."

Jane took the glass from him in both of her hands and raised it to her mouth to drink. The chains tinkled. She took a few swallows that seemed to take some effort.

Holding the glass in both of her hands, she lethargically looked up at the small man standing over her. Her eyes were blinking often, as if looking in the face of a bright glare.

"You _shot_ me."

Dave had the gall to be sheepish. "Yeah," looking down away from her gaze. "Sorry 'bout that."

* * * * * * *

Slender fingers slowly reached down and gently touched the small, dark and shiny spot on the cobblestones. The hand lifted and turned over.

Vi stared briefly at the blood on her fingertips before lowering her hand and getting back to her feet. 

In the near distance, standing in the middle of the narrow cobblestone street, Xander was speaking with a small heavyset woman. The woman was short. Dark hair tied in a thick braid behind her head. Olive skin.

Vi watched as the woman gestured emphatically as she spoke with him. Energetic. Her words made unintelligible by the distance. The woman finished confidently, pointing Xander in a direction. 

Xander gave the woman a few bills.

* * * * * * *

Walking slowly down the narrow street, Vi suddenly reached out and stopped Xander in his tracks with a gentle hand across his chest.

Xander looked at her with the question on his face.

Expressionless, Vi gestured crisply at the building off to their right.

Xander raised an eyebrow. 

Vi closed her eyes briefly. Inhaled a quick deep breath through her slightly opened mouth and was briefly still. She met Xander's eye and nodded again.

Xander nodded back, accepting.

He slipped the pistol from the holster at his hip. Ejected the clip. Took a moment to look at the bullets arranged in a tight stack inside. Slapped the clip back in. Fingers, grasped the slide along the top of the gun and pulled it back all the way, easily, and then let it go.

The ejector slipped back into position, the smoothness and precision of a well tended machine. 

The first round slipped into the chamber. 

* * * * * * *

"It'll be quick," Dave said over his shoulder after he left the room. "There's just something I have to get."

Whistling carelessly under his breath as he walked down the bare corridor.

Dave turned and saw Xander at the last moment.

Just time enough for the first wide-eyed hint of surprise to cross his face before the butt of Xander's pistol came down on the side of his head. The sound of it hitting his temple was a hollow, semi-muffled thud, like two pieces of wood being clapped together.

Dave fell back against the wall and slumped to the floor.

Xander stood there, looking down at the man laying sprawled out in front of him. Expressionless. He finally turned away and moved slowly down the hall. His pistol raised cautiously in front of him.

The faint sound of voices.

A woman, "You're certain those chains will hold her?"

"Trust me," a man's voice. "Those chains were blessed by a Sha'ha'izan mystic. Nobody's strong enough to break them. Not even a Slayer." 

Xander approached the door at the end of the hall unhesitatingly. Still expressionless. Nothing visible on his face. Just the sharpness of purpose, like a shadow across his eye.

The door was open. Xander tensed a little bit more, raising the pistol in his hands just slightly. 

The woman came into view first, standing by the opposite wall, arguing with someone out of view. She had dark hair. Bright red lipstick. A tight red sleeveless shirt and red leather pants that clung to a perfect body. She was wearing long, black gloves extended up both her arms just past her elbow.

She was looking off to the right. "I'm just nervous is all," she said, arms wrapped around herself self-consciously. "I got a lot of money ridin' on this. I just can't afford to let anything go wrong."

"No worries," the man said certainly. "She's not going anywhere."

Xander finally came completely around the corner. The sights of the gun resting on the woman across the room.

Xander glanced to his right. Saw the large man standing not six - seven feet away. Their eyes met. The other man's eyes widened. Thoughtlessly he threw himself at Xander. No hesitation.

Xander tried to bring the gun around. He wasn't quite fast enough. Ernie was on top of him, within his reach. The man bodily threw Xander back into the doorjamb. Xander groaned under his breath at the blow to his spine. The two large men grappled. Ernie punched Xander in the gut three times with a short underhanded stroke.

A brief glimpse across the room as Ernie shoved Xander back against the wall. The woman was quickly stripping off her gloves.

Xander brought up a knee, backing the other man off slightly, followed by elbow brought around to the other man's jaw like a punch knocking him off his feet. A strange sense of enjoyment played across Xander's face. Ernie hit the floor and groaned.

Xander stood over the dazed man, the victor.

Motion, at the other side of the room. Xander turned to see the woman lower her bare hands in front of her, palms up, just above belt level.

Their eyes met.

Electricity arced from her fingertips. Blue lightning that flashed across the room and hit him almost before he even had time enough to flinch from it. It slammed into Xander, throwing him back against the wall behind him, hard, the impact making the plaster crack sharply, his gun spinning off in the direction of the door. 

Xander's body landed on the floor like a thud, limp limbed, and was still. His open eyes were blank and staring. Empty.

  
  
  


______________________________________________________________________________

_Author's note: Sorry it's been a while since I updated. What can I say? I've got the greater story more or less figured out. It's the details that are screwing me. The tiny little things that I think make the story cool. I got hung up. I have most of the details of the next two or three chapters worked out so they should come along faster. I read fics by other authors saying that they had trouble writing and posted something they weren't happy with 'cause it was at least something. Don't expect that from me. I may be nervous about some things, but you'll never get anything from me I'm not happy with._

_I've been working on my original fic too lately so you may see the beginning of that posted up on my site soon if I can sort out a scene or two. Check it out when I do._

_Thanks a lot to KeepTheFaith for the review referring to Xander in my fic as Indiana Jones. As you can see I went with that._

_Hope to see ya again soon!_


	10. This is Nothing

Chapter Ten

"This is Nothing"

"_Stay awake! This is nothing!_"

Vi was trembling. Her voice brittle with emotion. Rona's pale mocha-colored hand clasped in hers. Their fingers wrapped firmly around each-other.

Rona was sprawled on one of the bench seats of the school bus, her back pressed beneath the window. Rona's lap was filled with blood, the bunched out folds of her shirt sodden and heavy, clinging.

Sunlight angling through the windows of the bus leaving every one of those details in a bright, merciless clarity.

"_This is nothing!_"

As their eyes stayed on each other. Hands still clasped between them. As the brown eyes looking out at her turned unfocused. As Rona's breath came desperately shallow gasps from her lungs.

As her strength seemed to leave her all at once.

As the light went out in her eyes.

Vi reached out one slender hand, gently brushing Rona's dark hair back from her too still face with her fingers. Brown eyes, blankly staring.

Vi repeated softly, "It's nothing."

- - - - - -

Xander, laying on the floor. His limbs limp and thoughtlessly splayed. Small pieces of shattered plaster in chunks and as spots of white dust clinging to his shirt.

- - - - - -

The papers were spread out over the desk. Files folders open. On top of each of the files was the photograph of a different young girl.

Wesley was sitting at the desk. He held the photo of one of the girl's in his hand. The young face smiled back at him. In a fit of frustration that suddenly seemed to wash over him like a tide, Wesley suddenly reached out and swept all of the files off his desk. The folders fell and loose papers fluttered to the floor.

"Problem, Wes?"

Harmony stood near the door to his office looking at him curiously. She held a coffee mug in one of her hands.

Wes was leaning against his desk tensely. He looked up from where his hands desperately gripped at the edge of the desk. "Have you ever . . . Have you ever have one of those days when you wished that you could just . . . not come into work. Just say the hell with the whole damn thing."

"Yeah." A bright smile passed across Harmony's face. She put the coffee mug down on Wesley's desk. "Sometimes I'm out and I meet that special someone who I wanna take home and bite and simply let his blood flow into my mouth, each final beat of his heart feeding more blood to me and flowing down my throat. The taste lingering, clinging in my mouth, as if the memory of it wants to stay with me. The taste, is just . . ."

Harmony smiled nostalgically.

Wesley blinked. "Frankly the idea of it makes me ill."

"You're alive. You're supposed to say that," Harm said carelessly. "But I like my job, as strange as that may seem. I've got a nice apartment, and I have nice shoes . . . they are nice aren't they . . . and I finally feel like a grown up. I mean something, ya know. Plus I've got friends here . . . not many, it's true, but you and Fred are cool. And Lorne is always nice to me, even if he dresses like a blind man and says things I don't always understand.

"And on the other side there's also the fact that if I did, Angel and the rest of you guys would hunt me down and drive a stake through me for killing someone, but . . . _yeah_, the temptation's still there."

Wes sighed, "This is one of those days."

- - - - - -

A few final blue sparks crackled around the Gwen Raiden's hands, electricity crackling in the gaps between her fingers before it was gone.

- - - - - -

Angel stormed into Wesley's office as Wes finished picking up the files from the floor and putting them back on his desk. Angel seemed tense. Nearly angry. He was holding a piece of paper in a death grip in one hand.

"Problem, Angel?"

"_Spike_," Angel responded simply. "Our people just told me that he's set himself up in an office across town."

"So Casper decided once and for all to stay in Los Angeles and make a go for it." A brief smile played across the former Watcher's face. "Good for him."

Angel didn't seem nearly as happy. The vampire exhaled an unnecessary breath. "Spike is a . . . _complication_."

Wes frowned. "How? I'll admit that he is a bit trying sometimes, but Spike is clearly one of the good guys. I don't think there's even any question of that anymore. With him here the city and the people who live here will be that much safer. Frankly I'm glad that he'll remain an available resource to us, even if he refuses to work for us directly." That hint of a smile resurfaced. "To be perfectly honest I respect that about him."

Angel sighed. "I don't think you get it, Wes. I knew Spike for a_ long_ time. I've rarely encountered a situation that Spike can't come along and somehow make more difficult. He's got this . . ._ habit_ . . . you could even call it a gift . . . of screwing up everything for me. I can guarantee you that Spike is eventually going to be more of a pain in the ass for us than our clients and employees will ever be."

- - - - - -

A deafening crack split the air.

Plaster exploded outward from part of the wall in a white cloud, leaving behind a ragged hole.

Vi was standing there, a pistol held at the end of her extended arm. The red headed slayer was looking at the other woman down the sights of the gun. The normally carefree slayer's face was crafted from stone.

"I wouldn't move, Electro-girl. One move and they'll be picking the inside of your skull up with a sponge." She took a few steps closer, her eyes never leaving the dark haired woman that stood across the room from her. A merciless smile passed across Vi's face, though that smile never reached the turbulent storm in her eyes, "You're pretty remarkable . . . you know that . . . but I somehow doubt you're bulletproof."

Vi briefly glanced down at the body laying motionless near the wall at one side of the room. Her soft voice spilled his name, "Xander."

The body lay there motionless.

"_Xander!_" Vi's face trembled visibly. A tear brimmed up in her eye and rolled down her cheek. Vi grit her teeth and her eyes hardened. The gun raised slightly in her hands.

Xander suddenly coughed. His cough stirred up faint clouds of plaster dust. Xander groaned as he rolled over onto his knees. "Ow!" One hand clutched at his chest. "_Holy fuck _that hurt!"

Some of the tension slipped from Vi's shoulders. Vi suddenly smiled awkwardly and threw a brief glance his way. A soft voice, "You okay?"

"Yeah," Xander said a little weakly. "I think I'm gonna be fine. Though I don't think my hair will ever be the same again."

Vi looked back at the woman angrily. The pistol was steady in her hand. "I don't know who the fuck you people are, or what the hell you're trying to do, but if you ever . . . _ever_ . . . come near Xander or one of our girls again, I will _fucking_ end you! There aren't words for the pain I'll leave you in."

The dark haired girl just watched Vi silently with fear in her eyes. She didn't seem to move at all.

"Now I'm gonna ask a question, and if I don't hear the answer I'm wanting to hear, things around here are gonna get a hell of a lot more . . . _colorful_." Looking at Gwen down the sights of the gun. "Insides to outsides and all that," Vi said evenly. "Let's just say, in the mood I'm in, I'm willing to be . . . _creative_." Vi's expression was remarkably cold. "_Where_ . . . is Jane?"

The woman's voice was unsteady. "She's, uh . . . She's chained up in the other room."

"Chained?!" Vi repeated distastefully. "And where would be the key?"

"In my pocket."

"Put it on the floor and take a step back."

Slowly, Gwen did what Vi told her to.

Vi narrowed her eyes and took a step closer. "To honest, given the choice I'd kill you. Either that or hold onto you so my friends could pry the answers to all the questions I have out of your head. But I don't know exactly how I could even hold onto you that long. I_ really_ wanna kill you."

The sound of a groan from off to one side.

"Your guy is waking up," said Vi, never taking her eyes off of Gwen as she held the gun on her. "Though I imagine he has a hell of a headache. Your other man is in the hall behind me. Take them and get the hell out of here. If I see any of you again, you and I are gonna have a confrontation." Vi delivered the threat coldly. "Now go."

- - - - - -

Dave, Gwen and Ernie stumbled into a narrow alley.

"Oh God," Dave looked at the other two with the sudden realization of the worst kind of horror in his eyes. "Angel's gonna kill us."

Ernie looked at him wide eyed. "_Oh shit!_"

Gwen looked back and forth between the two men. "Angel doesn't have to know." Her eyes still darting back and forth as she swallowed with visible effort. "We'll . . . We'll just tell him that Buffy's people found the girl and we leave the rest of this crap out of it. Agreed?"

"Gwen," Ernie said, "Does it look like I want to get my fuckin' head chopped off? A zero tolerance policy doesn't exactly give us a lot of wiggle room here." He ran his fingers back through his hair and looked at her desperately, "Okay, agreed. Does it look like we have a choice?"

Gwen looked between him and Dave briefly. They were both silent. "Alright, we play what really happened here on the down low and hope it all blows over. Just keep our mouths shut, keep to our story, and we'll all be fine."

"It better blow over," Dave said quietly. "For all our sakes."

- - - - - -

Vi turned the key and the golden bracelet fell away from Jane's wrist.

"There you go," said Vi as Jane rubbed at her wrist and awkwardly struggled to her feet.

Xander said, "I guess all's well that ends well."

"I don't feel so good." Jane stopped. She was unsteady on her feet. She carefully leaned against the wall. Her arms trembled as if she was struggling even with that. "I think I'm gonna throw up."

"Trust me. I'm right there with you."

Jane looked up and shared a look with the other slayer. "Who the hell were they?"

"I don't know," said Vi. "They were high class whoever they were. Not exactly cheap, and not the kind of people you run into by accident. They worked for someone."

"Who?"

"I don't know," Vi said. Something in her eyes was merciless "But if it's the last thing I do I'm gonna find out."

* * *

_Author's note: Sorry that it's been awhile. I hope this satisfies all of the people who were worried that I'd killed Xander. I kinda loved turning Vi into __something of a badass. Next chapter should return to the Buffy & Spike melodrama._


	11. I Prefer a Sunless Sky

**_Chapter Eleven_**

**_"I Prefer a Sunless Sky"_**

* * *

Spike reached for the phone when it rang. The phone was lost amid piles of boxes and a mess of papers on top of a desk. The vampire was sitting in a chair behind the desk. He leaned back in the chair and put his feet up on one corner of the desk.

"Summers Security & Investigation," Spike said. "We hope you're hopeless."

A few boxes fell from the desk, scattering their contents across the floor.

"Oh . . . hey, Fred." A smile passed across Spike's face. "No, we're just getting set up over here. It's actually something of a bloody mess."

Doyle walked into the office carrying a box. "Where do you want this?"

Spike, still holding the phone to his ear, looked up from the desk and shrugged carelessly. The other man simply walked across the room and tossed the box on top of a stack of similar boxes as Spike remained carelessly behind the desk.

"Tonight?" Spike responded, "My schedule's free. Well, aside from the usual cavalcade of brutal violence and strong language. We may eventually even have graphic nudity and sexual situations but I suppose you have to be content with what comes to you."

A moment later the vampire suddenly went a little wide and then he suddenly laughed out loud.

"Fred, princess, what horrible creature taught you that word. I hope you kicked his ass. Either that or showed him a wonderful time. A vocabulary like that would deserve it. I mean what would your mother think?"

Spike chuckled at her response. "Now that's a woman I'll have to meet. A lass after my own heart she must be . . . Tonight then. I'll meet you there. Bye, luv."

Spike hung up the phone.

He got up out of the chair and to see Doyle down on his knees picking up the boxes Spike had knocked over a few minutes earlier. He was collecting the spilled files and placing them back in the boxes.

Doyle looked up at the other man. "You know living with you must be like living with children."

"Can't say I haven't heard that before," said Spike, getting down on one knee and helping Doyle gather the files. He took a moment to collect a small collection of photos that had spilled out of one of the files.

Spike suddenly stopped, staring down at the photograph in his hand.

Buffy.

It was an old picture. She was younger and her hair was shorter and blonder than it had been when he'd last seen her. For a few brief moments he stared at the smiling girl in the photo wordlessly.

Spike exhaled, his shoulders dropping, as if a weight had suddenly settled on his shoulders. He looked at the other man.

"Where'd you get this?"

Doyle looked down at the photo in Spike's hand. "I took it from her file at Wolfram & Hart." He reached out gently and took the picture from Spike's fingers, tucking it carefully back into the file. "You'd be amazed by the stuff they have there. I've been collecting information on Angel for years, back since I worked for them. I'm sorry, okay, but it stands to reason I'd have somethin' on her.

"I'll bet," Spike responded wryly. He spoke quietly. "I suppose they'd be big on sizing up the competition."

Doyle's mouth twisted briefly in the direction of a smile. "I think . . . _'opposition'_ is more apropos where she's concerned. But yeah, they keep an eye on her. Keep an interest. She's part of Angel's life, or_ was _anyway. Eve has just been helping me flesh out some of the stuff I missed. Keep me up to date on some of _our_ . . . opposition. Sooner or later we're bound to come up against them."

"I'd prefernot to," Spike replied. "Angel may be an asshole, but that doesn't mean I wanna rip his guts out. Well, no more than's natural I s'pose." The vampire allowed himself a slight smile. "He may be a git, and he may be a walking, talking argument for birth control, but he's family. Angel may be misguided. Stupid even. But evil . . . no. And some of the people working with him are friends."

Doyle gave Spike a hard look. "That place only brings out the worst in people. It'll grind you down 'til that's all that's left of you. And what will your friends be then? Who will they be a month from now? A year from now? Trust me, I've seen it."

"And I have to believe in the best of them," the vampire answered a bit sharply. "I have faith in them. Faith in Fred. Faith in Wes. And, god help me, faith in Angel. I have to believe that, despite their hubris, they'll be able to survive that place."

"Even the best of people can work in the worst of places I suppose," Doyle surrendered. "I hope you're right. About all of them. Oh god, I hope . . ."

Spike's expression softened. "Do you love her?"

"Eve?"

"Do you love her?"

Doyle hesitated, "Honestly . . . I don't know."

"Find out," Spike told the other man certainly. "It's a bloody important thing to know. And if you do love her, tell her. Grab hold of that and never let her go again.

Doyle looked at Spike for a few long moments. "Why are you still here?"

"I'm not quite gettin' ya, Doyle."

"I know why I'm here. It's you I don't get. Why are you still here? Why aren't you off in Rome snuggling with your honey. We resurrected you as an alternative to Angel. So in the end that there was someone that Wolfram & Hart didn't have in their pocket, but that never meant you had to stay in Los Angeles."

Spike hesitated. The silence held out long enough that there was a question of whether he even intended to answer. A sigh came out with his breath. "Unrequited love . . . is a terrible thing. Standing there every day, at the edges of the world, watching the one person you love more than anything else in the world go on with her life without you.

"Love can change a person, dig down deep inside and twist their whole bloody world around. Love . . . can redefine you," Spike remarked morosely. Subsumed in the bitterness of nostalgia. "Loving Buffy changed me. There's no denying that. But it also brought out the worst in me. It reached down inside me and wrenched all my emotions and good intentions into one terrible moment of brutality that ripped both our hearts out and left them bleeding and broken on the ground. I'm not a good man, Doyle. It's been a long time since I was.

"Though fucked if I don't try," he finished, quietly bitter.

For a few long moments the whispered sound of a radio at the back corner of the office was the only noise to be heard.

_Down to the earth I fell  
With dripping wings,  
Heavy things won't fly_

"I like to think that I meant something to her," Spike said finally. "I think maybe I did." He shrugged. "Maybe," the single word spoken softly like a prayer. "I could go to Italy and see Buffy, and we might . . . _might_ . . . be able to salvage something. She might even find it in herself to love me.

Briefly, a faint smile played about the vampire's face.

"I think . . . I think that I can live with the hope. But I don't think I could live without it.

_  
And the sky might catch on fire  
And burn the axis of the world_

"If for some reason . . . if she turned me away it would bloody destroy me.

"I understand why you did what you did, Doyle. I do. Bringing me back. But it wasn't a nice thing. Not by a long shot. I spent almost six months watching the world go by. Right there in front of me. Not being able to do anything about it. Not being able to touch. Not being able to feel. Six bleedin' months without even the simplest comfort. Nearly six months of being nothing. I can't be that again. I can't be nothing. I can't be dead. I just can't. And that's what I'd be . . . if I took the risk . . . if Buffy turned me away."

"But I'm okay." Spike looked up at the other man and forced a smile. "I am. I'm okay. I've accepted it. I'm learnin' to live with it. I think I can live with it. The fuckin' terrible truth, I guess, one of those things that no-one has the heart to tell you, is that some people are just meant to be alone."

_That's why  
I prefer a sunless sky  
To the glittering and stinging in my eye_

* * *

"Amanda, try not to get so far ahead." The worry in the blonde college girl's voice was obvious. "Just try to stay close, okay honey."

The small dark haired girl looked back at them through a crowd. "Alright, Nina."

"She's a good kid," Angel said quietly, walking side-by-side with Nina through the crowded mall.

"The best," the pride in her voice bringing with a it a faint smile as her eyes followed the girl as she disappeared into the crowd. "I just worry sometimes. I can't protect her. There's things in this world that . . ." Nina sighed. "Vampires. Werewolves. Giant glowing Easter eggs that turn you into Muppets."

Angel frowned. "I'll have you know my people destroyed that . . . _giant_ . . . _Easter egg_."

"I remember." Nina smiled. " 'I want helicopters and tear gas' 'This is war!' It was kinda funny. Fun for the whole family. The werewolf side of me eating you part was less fun, but the kinda thing you chuckle about when you look back on it."

"I'm glad my horrible trauma amused you." A momentary smile crossed Angel's face. "See how you like it when it happens to you."

Nina laughed, a smile brightening her whole face as she turned toward Angel. She seemed a little hyper, giddy, almost bouncing on the balls of her feet. "I think I'd make a cute Muppet."

"Yeah," he said, slowly raising a hand. "You would." She suddenly stilled as his fingers swept a lock of her blonde hair back and gently brushed across her cheek. Her large blue eyes followed him. "Like Miss Piggy . . ."

Nina opened her mouth to say something but suddenly Angel was kissing her ever so softly, his fingertips still gently cradling her cheek.

Nina closed her eyes and settled into the kiss.

The faint music coming through the mall sound system was a distant tempo accompanying them.

_Feel so light  
This is all I wanna feel tonight  
Feel so light  
Tonight and the rest of my life_

They came apart as quietly as they had come together. She smiled at him and then looked down coyly. Angel reached out carefully and took her hand. Their fingers carefully entangled. Nina looked down at their entwined hands.

Angel and Nina walked together through the mall hand in hand.

_Gleaming in the dark sea  
I'm as light as air  
Floating there _

_breathlessly_

* * *

"I think I need another drink," Spike said pitifully as he looked down into his half empty beer glass. The soft sound of country music from the jukebox nearby filled the pub. "There's only so much of this a man can take."

Harmony and Fred shared a look across the table. "Apparently being with two women at once is too much for him."

"Pity." Fred gave him a brief appraising look. "And I had such high hopes."

Spike opened his mouth and then closed it again. "There isn't a way to respond that will leave me with my dignity, is there!"

Harmony grinned. "Probably not."

Fred smiled. "Just be happy that we left you with more dignity than Angel has left at the moment."

The reminder of that suddenly sent Spike into a laughing fit. "Angel the puppet. I really wish I had been able to be there to see it."

Harmony's grin turned wicked. "I have pictures."

Fred glanced at her sharply. "I can't believe you'd do that. If Angel found out he'd . . ."

Harmony looked at the other woman and raised an eyebrow.

Fred's facade broke in moments. "Okay, okay . . . so I made copies of the security tapes. I mean how could I _not _do it. It was just so . . ." Fred made an effort to collect herself. She pursed her mouth briefly and justified, "At least I feel a little bad about it."

"Fat lot of good that does."

Fred suddenly seemed to find the tiny umbrella in her glass very interesting.

Spike leaned forward slightly in his chair. "What was it like?"

Harmony frowned, "What do you mean? Are you asking what Angel was like as a Muppet? I don't know, um . . . he was angry, a little stiff, like he was walking around with someone's fist up his . . ." She suddenly brightened, "Oh, I got it. He was like the love-child of those two guys up in the balcony on the Muppet Show mixed with a bit of the personality of that big blue eagle."

At that both Fred and Spike were suddenly laughing hysterically. Fred bent over laughing so hard she nearly fell off her chair. Her forehead knocked against the table with and audible thud. "That is so incredibly cruel," Fred said, still laughing. There were tears at the corner of her eyes. At a look from Spike, she giggled and said, "I didn't say it wasn't true . . . I just said it was cruel."

Spike raised his glass. "To taking what life throws at you with a sense of humor."

They all raised their glasses and took a drink.

"Jim Henson is probably rolling over in his grave," Spike murmured into his glass. Fred's tiny fist suddenly jabbed him in the shoulder. "Ow."

Fred raised an eyebrow and smiled at him. She raised her nearly empty glass again. To Spike and Harmony. "To good friends."

* * *

"I'm getting another drink," said Fred. "You guys want anything?"

"No. I still haven't finished the last one yet."

"Me either," answered Spike. "I think it's near time I called it a night."

Fred gave him a brief playful smile. "Lightweight," she teased kindly. "Well I don't care about either of you. I'm getting another drink. I'm gonna pour myself into a cab. And tomorrow I'll wake up bright and early and go into work with one major league hangover."

"Well good luck with that."

Fred smiled brightly. "Thanks."

She walked off in the direction of the bar.

Harmony looked at Spike as he picked up his wallet from the table and tucked it into the back pocket of his jeans. "So you're really leaving?"

"Yeah," Spike said. "The night calls and all that. Time to play the bloody hero."

"You could come home with me." She looked up at him with doleful eyes. "No promises. No, you know . . . _expectations_." She smiled across the table at him awkwardly. "Just come home with me and we can see where it goes from there." Harmony suddenly seemed nervous absently fiddling with the tiny umbrella in her glass, "Or . . . or I could come . . ."

Spike dismissed her with a slow shake of his head. A somehow hopeless and sad expression flitted briefly across her face. All the while he was looking at her regretfully. He sighed. "I just wanted to tell you I'm sorry. I'm sorry for the way I treated you. I'm sorry for the way I was.

"You, Harm . . . amaze me. You are a beautiful, amazing woman. I know Angel and the others don't give you enough bloody credit. You made your own path. You quit the bloodletting. You never fit in, so you found a place where you could fit. All on your own. You, Harm, are something _spectacular_. And one day some guy will finally see that. He'll sweep you off your feet, and once he has you he'll know what he has and he'll never let go. He'll treat you like a princess like you've always deserved."

Tears welled up in her eyes. "I don't want some guy," Harmony said sincerely. A few stray tears escaped her eyes rolled down the delicate lines of her face. "I want _you_."

Spike shook his head sadly. "No you don't." He reached up slowly and softly brushed away her tears. His fingertips barely ghosted across her fair skin. "I wouldn't be any good to you." There was something transparently sad about him for this one brief moment. "I'm not sure I'd be any good to anyone."

Spike handed her a napkin and she took a few moments to dab at the corners of her eyes with it. Harmony looked up at him and sniffled. "She was a fool to ever let you go."

Spike managed a watery smile. "Well opinions differ on that one. But thank you."

* * *

Buffy was sitting outside in the dark. She was sitting on a rock, beneath the stars, with the dark shape of a large dog curled up next to her with its head resting in her lap. The dog raised it's head from Buffy's lap, looking out into the dark back toward the house. Someone approached in the night. The dog relaxed, settling its head back into Buffy's lap moments before the figure finally spoke.

Dawn stepped up behind Buffy. "How long are you gonna sit out here?"

" 'til the world makes sense."

Dawn smiled and sat down beside her. "So you plan on staying quite a while then."

"Pretty much."

Dawn sighed. "Giles is right. His motives may not be the best . . . but his heart _is_ in the right place . . . and the simple truth is that he's right." Dawn lowered her eyes briefly. "I suppose that's not what you were hoping to hear."

"Not exactly," was Buffy's morose response. The dog looked at her quietly. Buffy scratched behind its ears and the dog relaxed, its head settling back on her leg. Buffy sighed, "Sometimes I wish just one of you would say what I want you to say."

Dawn's expression darkened slightly. "What you want is for me to lie to you. But I love you too much to do that. Giles loves you too. Sometimes when you love someone you have to hurt them. You have to hurt them so they don't hurt themselves. Giles just wanted you to understand, that if you did what you had been thinking of doing, if you had run off to see Spike, that would probably be the end of any chance you ever had for a normal life."

"I know," Buffy snapped the words breathlessly. "God, do you think I don't know?"

"But you needed to hear it."

Buffy looked down at her hands. "Maybe I did."

"A normal life," Dawn leaned forward slightly. "That's all Giles wants for you. A chance that never even existed for you before. I get it. But it's not as easy as that, Buffy. How could you ever have a normal life? You'll never walk away. There will always be something. Something that calls you back. Something you feel compelled to fight. Something you won't trust to anyone else. Every day . . . for the rest of your life."

"I know," Buffy admitted quietly. "I just like to live the delusion sometimes."

"And delusional living is fine, just as you don't think you can jump off a bridge and fly or something like that. Why don't we see more flying demons? I mean beside the dragon that was never seen again and Andrew's monkeys . . . There's no reason they can't . . ."

"Off topic, Dawn."

"Oh, sorry. Where was I?"

"About where one day I'm going to be an old lady who can only live with cats."

Dawn made a dismissive gesture. "Pufft . . . That's not gonna happen."

"Oh . . . good."

"We have Drogyn. He'd eat any cats you brought home."

"Hey . . ."

"And you have me, silly," Dawn placed an arm around Buffy and hugged her to herself briefly. "And one day you'll have a guy who will stick around and love you and who will throw you down on the kitchen floor and do things I don't even want to think about."

A brief smile shone though, "So there's kitchen sex in my future. I'm thrilled."

"Exempting that I never walk in on it and you strictly avoid tables and food preparation surfaces, sure," Dawn replied. "You'll have that, sometime . . . but maybe not with him."

Dawn delivered this sentence with a even calmness that fell upon Buffy like the brutal finality of fate.

"Before you do anything," Dawn went on, "I want you to think about what it is you really want. Because I can see it in your eyes, part of you still thinks that if you can just work up the nerve to see him that you might finally get your happily ever after. You'll smile and he will too, and you'll come together in a kiss more passionate than any you've ever shared. Fade to black. Buffy and Spike in love forever. I can tell you right now that ain't gonna happen. There is no happily ever after, not in the strictest sense . . . and certainly not with_ him_. Even if you decided to be with him, some days he'd make you angry. And I can guarantee he'll eventually say the wrong thing at the wrong time and make you want to kill him."

Buffy looked at Dawn quietly with tears in her eyes. Tears rolled down the heartbroken corners of her face.

"And he isn't immortal. He's as mortal as any of us. You should know that now. Despite his rather odd solution to the _Kobayashi Maru_, one day he might be gone from this world again. Or it might be your turn . . . _again_. You know, this whole you only have so much time in your life speech might be more poignant if you idiots didn't keep coming back from the dead. You ruined a good cliche."

"Next time I die I'll be sure to be cliche and stay dead," Buffy muttered and wiped at the tears on her face with the back of her hand.

"But I'm not sure any of that matters," continued Dawn. "Let's make this simple, even though we both know that it's not. I want you to ask yourself one question. Just one. However long or short your life may be, whatever obstacles you'll face, do you think you'd be happier with him in your life?" Buffy looked over at her blinking away her tears. "Do you believe he could be happier with you in his?"

_When the dream dissolves I open up my eyes  
I realize that  
Everything is shoreless sea  
Weightlessness is passing over me_

* * *

When Wesley walked into the Fred's office in the science lab Fred was talking on the phone. "Trust me, I understand," Fred said into the phone. She reached back and brushed some of her hair back behind her ear as he watched.

"Just get back to me sometime after this is all done and tell me how it went . . . No, nothing like that. Just good old honest curiosity. He'll vouch for me . . ." Fred listened for a few moments before the smile on her face brightened. "I hope so too." She paused a moment and then shook her head. "Don't worry about it. Always happy to help a friend. Just get back to me with that and we'll be square . . .

"Well I certainly don't want to hold you from more important things," Fred said, grinning. "We can girl-talk later. Bye then."

Fred settled the phone back into the cradle.

"You're working late," said Wesley.

She looked up and smiled at him. "A science nerd's work is never done." she said. He followed her as she walked back out of her office into the lab. Looking up at him, she finally remarked, "I haven't seen you out of your office much lately." She relented as Wes just stood there looking at her, "I know, I know . . . pot, kettle. I've just been spending a lot of time in the lab lately. I've just had so many ideas and not enough time. I feel like I'm back in that cave and I'm running out of wall. What about you?" Fred asked as she made some small adjustments to a device, plugging a few color coded cables from a laptop into sockets on the back of it. "Have you been doing anything interesting lately?"

"Nothing worth bragging about."

"Nothing interesting," she asked looking up from the laptop. "Nothing challenging for a man of your . . . _whatever_." She smirked at him playfully. "Pity. Sometimes the challenges are what make life interesting. Come to think of it I haven't seen much other the others either. I think we've all . . . I don't know. Forget the vampires and the Senior Partners. I think the real evil here is after so many years of working anarchy and daily fun with our friends is finally having to settle into a nine to five job. What do you know Wes, we finally grew up."

She reached out and pressed the enter button on the laptop. For a brief moment one end of the attached device glowed, shining across the small enclosure on the glass slide set up as a target. With it came the faint odor of burnt meat. The device sizzled, raising a thin streamer of smoke. "Damn!"

Wes looked at the device. "What's this?"

"Just a little something I've been working on. Call it an ultraviolet grenade."

"I see," Wes said with barely a raised eyebrow. But his interest was obviously piqued. "That would certainly be useful if you could pull it off. Any luck."

"If you count bad luck as luck I've had lots. Sunlight is hard to replicate. I can duplicate the disparate parts. Greenhouses have had sun lamps for years. But that doesn't work on vampires.

She spoke the facts matter of fact, like a school teacher, "The sun kills vampires. If you go with that logic then stakes kill vamps because stakes are made from plants which store up sunlight. By that logic a stake made of material grown in a indoor sunroom would be ineffectual. There seems to be something about sunlight itself. Something like . . . magic. So I called your department and talked to Ollie. Of course he had to be all difficult and simply told me not to even bother."

"And far be it from me to support one of my subordinates," Wes responded thoughtfully, "but I'd have to agree. The Council experimented on a sunshine spell for years and could never quite pull it off. Some of the more astute even made the connection between stakes and sunlight. But it was the other connections that eluded them. The typical vampiric aversion to religious iconogy. Crosses. Menorah. The Star of David. Even holy water and consecrated earth. And not simply aversion, but violent burning upon touching them. They tried to find some common link, but the iconogy worked even if the crosses were constructed of iron or brass. And holy water was a simple article of faith, but it worked regardless of the beliefs of those using them. Ancient cultures had worshiped the sun, so it could be interpreted as an icon in a broad sense, but others worshiped the moon and moonlight has no effect. The Council's conclusion in the end was the simple philosophic one, that the answers they were looking for were beyond their ken. One of their smarter moves actually. So I take it you've had no more luck than the Council."

"Oh, I can get it to work," Fred corrected him. "It's getting it to work effectively that's the issue. I built a flash grenade that can cause serious burns to vamps, but it won't kill them. It burns out first. Even if I make it bigger with better cooling and adjust the power output it still burns out. I tried making a gun, with a nice regulated burst of power, but anything close to a lethal dose burns it out."

"But it will still be quite useful," said Wes. "I'm amazed you got that far. I don't suppose I should be surprised. Imagine tossing down one of your grenades in a nest where the vampires are holding captives the moment you're going in. I imagine that would be very effective. Bravo."

"Thanks." Fred blushed and lowered her head. "But even working within the limits of the technology I've found ways to make it useful." She walked over and opened a cabinet that was against the wall. It was filled with weapons, each one arranged neatly inside. She picked up one of a set of five identical pistols. The pistol was black and gray and fit quite comfortably in her small hand. "Here's one of the guns I built."

She handed it to him carefully. Wes took a few moments to study the pistol in his hands. Testing the weight, the balance.

"That's pretty small."

Fred shrugged. "About the size of any standard semi-automatic pistol. Anything bigger would make it unwieldy in combat. And like I said size isn't the problem with this tech. Big or small it still burns out, so why not make it small. Pull the trigger."

Wesley raised the gun to shoulder height, aiming down his arm toward the far wall. He tensed and pulled the trigger. A small area of the wall across the room flashed bright with light. Something popped out of the side of the pistol. It hit the floor and bounced once.

"What was that?"

Fred smiled. "That was me working within the tech. If it has to burn out I simply made it burn out inside a disposable circuit. Something that can be easily replaced. No use making a gun that will overload and be useless after one shot. Pull the trigger again."

The gun flashed again, ejecting another burnt out circuit.

"I've also been experimenting with other alternatives. Oak and holy water bullets. Silver sulphate. Garlic extract. I also tried ultraviolet but I don't think it'll work at all. I've tried strengthening them with glass, plastic and ceramic. Spike was right, watching bad movies does give you ideas."

Wes gave her a look.

"Hey, I thought _Underworld _was cool," she responded self-defensively. "None of these have been combat tested of course. I gave one of them to Spike to try out for me earlier, but I see no reason it shouldn't work"

"Amazing," Wes said admiringly. "Have I told you how brilliant you are lately?"

Still smiling, Fred shook her head and looked up at him bright eyed. "Not lately, but then again you've been busy."

_Everything is waves and stars  
The universe is resting in my arms_

* * *

Spike shrugged off his duster as he came through the door into the dark apartment. He was carelessly methodic as he stripped himself of weapons. He laid the few stakes he was carrying on top of the small end table to one side of the door. Took a few moments to unsling the holster holding Fred's ultraviolet pistol from alongside his hip and place it beside the stakes. The katana sword he was carrying he left leaning in the dark corner beside everything else.

He quietly walked across to the kitchen in the dark. He opened the refrigerator and removed a beer. A few moments later he settled back onto the couch, and took a first quiet drink.

A few minutes later the trill of a telephone shattered the silence.

Sighing, Spike stood up. He walked across the room and lifted the phone. "Hey."

He was greeted only by silence. A long moments as the silence drew itself out.

A voice, soft, "Spike!"

Spike suddenly stopped. For a few long moments he was almost completely still. His response was emotionless. "Yeah."

"I got this number from Fred. I, uh . . . I hope you don't mind."

"Uh . . . no," Spike responded awkwardly. "Don't mind at all."

"It's, um . . . It's good to hear your voice."

Spike closed his eyes and took and slow, quiet breath. "Yours too, Buffy," he answered gently. A single tear came loose from the corner of his eye and traced its way down his cheek. "Yours too."

_I feel so alive  
This is all I wanna feel tonight  
I feel so light  
Tonight and the rest of my life _

* * *

_Author's note: Both the song used in this chapter and the chapter title are from the song "Tonight and the Rest of My Life" by Nina Gordon. Just to make things clear it doesn't belong to me._


End file.
